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THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 
AND HER SON 




The Empress Eugenie. By Carpeaux. This head was 
SOLD IN Paris, with all the other works of the cele- 
brated SCULPTOR, IN 1Q14. The Empress reluctantly 

posed FOR this PORTRAIT. CaRPEAUX WAS SO VEXED WITH 

HER FAINT PRAISE OF HIS WORK THAT HE THREW IT INTO 

A CORNER OF HIS STUDIO, FROM WHICH ONE OF HIS PUPILS 

RECOVERED IT LONG AFTERWARDS 



THE 

EMPRESS EUGENIE 
AND HER SON 



BY 

EDWARD LEGGE 

AUTHOR OF 
"KING EDWARD IN HIS TRUE COLOURS 



^ 



WITH TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1916 



f'l 



$'=> 









PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 



i 



PREFACE 



" History has only learned of late to dispel the mists 
both of glamour and of prejudice, and to study in 
the true mood of human sympathy and impartial 
insight the amazing years of the Second Empire." * 

Prosper Merimee, the intimate friend of the 
Empress Eugenie, her sister and their mother, 
the Comtesse de Montijo, said the only things in 
histories which interested him were the anecdotes. 
This being so, Merimee, who, I suppose, " the 
skilled gentry of the " Times " Literary Supple- 
ment permitting, may be termed a French classic, 
might possibly have smiled a qualified approval of 
the twelve hundred pages which I have now 
devoted to the Empress, Napoleon III., the Prince 
Imperial (" Napoleon IV.") and many of the most 
prominent personages and events of the Second 
Empire and after. 

I have not attempted to pen cut-and-dried 
" biographies." Such things are to be found m 
bulky tomes containing amazing views of Emperors 
and Empresses — and Kings. (By " biographies " 
I do not, needless to say, mean " lives " such as 
those by Lord Fitzmaurice of Lord Granville, by 
Lord Morley of Mr Gladstone, and by Sir Edward 
Cook of " Delane of the ' Times ' " — all brilliant 
and accurate, unsurpassable.) To write ordinary 
biographies is as easy as planting cabbages, and less 
useful. 

But while I have studiously eschewed the common- 
place, unattractive biographical method — dates follow- 

*" Daily Telegraph," one of the few English papers which 
has always dealt fairly with the Napoleonic r^g-ime and 
remains consistently sympathetic with the Empress. 

5 



6 PREFACE 

ing each other in chronological precision, from 
the subject's birth to death — I have essayed to 
present all the obtainable episodes which marked 
the careers of my characters. My method was not 
inaptly described by the " Times " reviewer of " The 
Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire " 
(September 14, 191 1): " Mr Legge, who published 
' The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910/ and who has 
an expansive literary manner, has ransacked for 
piquant detail all the chief sources of information 
(he even quotes from M. Ollivier's latest volume), 
and quotes the original documents — telegrams 
between the Emperor and Empress during the first 
weeks of the war — with much effect." The amiable 
reviewer might have added that I was an eye- 
witness of many of the events described in my 
previous volumes. This may also be said of the 
present work. I prefer writing of people and 
things, " seen with my eyes " to writing about what 
I have " heard with my ears." What I see I can 
narrate accurately. What I hear depends for its 
value upon the truthfulness of my informants. 
I have never had the slightest cause of complaint 
on this score. From all alike I have received 
invaluable assistance. 

From the beginning of this trilogy down to its 
completion in January-February, 19 16, I have 
had the most liberal and valued assistance of many 
who are justly entitled authorities; others have 
given me their encouragement and countenance. 
Among them was the late M. Emile Ollivier, 
whose final volumes of " L'Empire Liberal " * 
I have now analysed for the purpose of giving 
some at least of the readers of these pages information 

* The last of the series was issued in August, 191 5, and the 
first review of it in this country was written by me for the 
" Pall Mall Gazette " before copies of the work were 
obtainable in London. 



PREFACE 7 

which will enable them to realise more completely 
than they have perhaps hitherto done the facts 
concerning the two foremost personages in the 
narrative. 

To M. Lucien Alphonse Daudet I am particularly 
indebted for permission to present what is certainly 
the most perfect, as it is the most charming and 
faithful, portrait of the Empress hitherto given to 
the world. This minute psychological study will 
be, I think, regarded by competent judges as a 
gem of literature. It could not have been achieved 
by anyone else for the simple reason that, as a 
protege of her Imperial Majesty, M. Daudet has 
had for many years exceptional facilities for 
accomplishing his task both at Farnborough Hill 
and Cap Martin (Villa Cyrnos, which the Empress 
has not seen since the summer preceding the war). 
Moreover, as a Frenchman he has gifts of style and 
expression in this branch of literature which have 
been denied to most writers of other nationalities, 
those of Italy excepted. Among our own living 
authors I think he is most nearly approached by 
Mr Filson Young. Friends of the Empress (and 
of M. Daudet) whose acquaintance I have been 
privileged to make have been not unfriendly to 
me — far from it. Of such was the late Mme de 
Arcos, one of the two best-loved friends of the 
Empress, the other being her sister, Mrs Vaughan, 
whose daughter. Miss Vaughan, has long been one 
of her Majesty's companions and favourities. 

In justice to M. Daudet I wish to make it quite 
clear that he is not responsible (so to put it) for a 
single line or word in this volume other than the 
pages from his own pen. He did not know what I 
was going to write and have written and quoted 
from M. Ollivier's works and those of other and 
lesser authors; nor will he know until he sees 
this volume. I think it quite possible that Mme 



8 PREFACE 

de Arcos, in her kindly, benevolent way, may have 
hinted to him that I had maintained a sympathetic 
attitude towards her Majesty. But there is a gulf 
between sympathy and servility. And above all 
else I had to write impartially and conscientiously 
according to my lights. This a " hired " author, 
or one upon whom pressure had been put, could 
not have done. That devoted friend of Napoleon 
III., Lord Glenesk, did not hesitate (when Mr 
Algernon Borthwick) to criticise the Empress and 
some of those who surrounded her at Chislehurst in 
1 87 1 when the Emperor was at Wilhelmshohe, and 
on occasion I also have spoken my mind. 

In introducing M. Daudet to that large circle 
of readers whose favour I have enjoyed through 
my Second Empire, King Edward, and Kaiser 
books, I should like to reinforce my expressed view 
of his charm and gift of personal analysis by 
citing a few lines from a review of his " LTmperatrice 
Eugenie " in the " Times " Literary Supplement. 
Speaking of his " portrait (or at least a sketch from 
life) of one of the most enigmatic of historical 
personages " the writer said : " We all know the 
Empress of modern legend : frivolous and dangerous, 
loveliest of women, high-spirited, irreductible, ^ more 
clerical than the Pope — the Empress on whose 
slim shoulders the Republicans laid all the weight 
of the war — ' Ma guerre a moi.' ... In M. Daudet's 
likeness there is just enough of these lineaments 
for us to understand all the cruelty of the democratic 
caricature ; as Perseus looked at the image of 
Medusa in a fountain, let us consider the redoubt- 
able Sphinx of modern France as she is mirrored in 

* Irreductible : that cannot be reduced. Vide Tarver's 
Royal Phraseological Eng-lish-French, French-English Diction- 
ary (Dulau & Co.). The word is not given in the Concise 
Oxford Dictionary of Current English, adapted from the 
Oxford Dictionary, edition 19U, 



PREFACE 9 

the consciousness of a young novelist, prepared 
to understand her by character, heredity and circum- 
stance. . . . Like the Empress of Austria, she 
might say : ' Nous ne marchons pas comme doivent 
marcher les Reines. Les Bourbons, qui presque 
jamais ne sont sortis a pied, ont pris une allure 
speciale — celle d'oies majestueuses.' There was 
nothing of the majestic goose in either of these 
intrepid, solitary and courageous Empresses — they 
were eagles rather, the eagles of their empires — 
eagles or swans. In both of them the final note is 
a solitary self-sufficiency, a secret source of courage, 
sufficient to all the hard trials of their existence." 

It will assist the readers of my pages to form a 
just estimate of the Empress if I quote a few 
other lines from the " Times " appreciation of 
M. Daudet's " portrait (or at least a sketch from 
life)," for the article is a masterly one throughout. 
" The Empress of the French [the title sounds oddly 
in 19 16] is a woman of the keenest positive 
intelligence and rare political capacity." This much 
I claimed for her after reading a long letter 
which she wrote to one of her oldest and dearest 
woman friends on the day after King Edward's 
death— a letter in which she dwelt in statesmanlike 
fashion upon the possible European results of 
that calamity. 

She has a feehng" not uncommon in the Stoics (nor in the 
least contrary to their doctrine) for certain personal advantages 
often conducive to morality, or at least conformable to the 
ideal of human nature — such as beauty, health, streng-th, 
wealth, honour, breeding-, high connexions, which increase 
the usefulness and influence of those who possess them. 
She is full of experience and often formulates, with singular 
eloquence, the result of her observations ; but these axioms 
and views, however original, have something precise and 
individual — " I'lmp^ratrice n'aime que les certitudes et la 
lumi^re." [This is an extract from M. Daudet's "portrait."] 
Beautiful, witty and wise, just sufficiently capricious still 



lo PREFACE 

to enchain the attention of her courtiers, she has kept in 
her old ag^e and after all her sorrows a freshness of sentiment, 
a keenness in simple pleasures, which endear her to the 
young-. Yet behind this agreeable surface the depth is an 
entire renunciation, with never a reminiscence, with never 
a complaint. Voluntarily anonymous henceforth, the mistress 
of the Tuileries lives these many years in a Hampshire 
manor which bears on its stone frontage neither the bees 
nor the eagle of Imperial France, but the blazon of a London 
publisher. * Unmoved she stays in Paris in one of those 
cosmopolitan hotels whose balconies look out on the gardens 
where she used to reign and where the Prince Imperial had 
his playground. 

Nearly thirty-seven years have elapsed since the 
Zulus' assegais robbed the Empress of her son. 
After the tragedy French authors and journalists 
began a new campaign against the mother, based 
upon statements purporting to have been made by 
various persons, admirers of the Prince Imperial, 
but hostile to the Empress, who was alleged to have 
made the young man's life at Chislehurst unbear- 
able. Hence his departure for Zululand. All these 
malevolent assertions and innuendoes have naturally 
deeply grieved the Empress, and I am glad of 
the opportunity which has been given to me to 
refute them en bloc. No exculpation of the 
Empress could be more complete. I present it as a 
souvenir of the boy of fourteen whose " baptism 
of fire on the heights overlooking Saarbriicken I 
witnessed forty-four years before the second invasion 
of France by the fiendish Huns in 19 14; while 
a month after the " baptism " I was a spectator 
of the crowning French disaster at Sedan and a 
participant in the conquerors' march upon that Paris 
which for nearly six months so heroically defied 
the besieging hosts. 

The collection of Cardinal Bonaparte's letters 
relating to Napoleon HI., the Empress and the 

* The reference is to the late Mr Thomas Longman. > 



PREFACE II 

Prince Imperial is, I submit, a primeur of value. 
This hieroglyphical correspondence was translated 
for me by my esteemed young friend, Father 
Gougaud, O.S.B., of St Michael's Abbey, Farn- 
borough. He was one of the first to be called 
to the colours in 19 14, was taken prisoner in the 
battle of Maubeuge, after a few weeks' service, 
and in February, 19 16, was still a captive. Another 
of the Benedictines is a prisoner at Stuttgart, three 
have been and are doing infirmary work, one is 
in the trenches, one has been missing from April, 
19 1 5, and one (of Italian birth) is a chaplain 
with the Italian forces. Brother Emile Moreau 
(whom most visitors to St Michael's Abbey will 
remember at the lodge, at which picture post cards, 
photographs, etc., are obtainable) has two nephews, 
eight cousins and several friends all on active service 
with the French armies. 

As St Michael's Abbey Church was the Empress's 
free gift to the Benedictines, it is no more than 
their due to record here their patriotism. At " Farn- 
borough Court," their property, they began war 
relief work on October 16, 19 14, when they took 
charge of twenty-five wounded Belgians, tending 
them until they were cured. Since then there have 
been regularly occupied by British wounded or 
ailing thirty-five, forty, or fifty beds. This good work, 
of which hitherto no public mention has been 
made, is under the personal surveillance and direction 
of the revered Lord Abbot, the Very Rev. Dom 
Cabrol, whose erudition is known to Benedictines 
all over the world, and particularly in England, 
France and Italy. This Benedictine foundation 
is not now dependent in any way upon the Imperial 
donor of the extensive property; it supports itself, 
with the aid of any donations it may receive 
voluntarily. 

The Imperial chronicle of every-day events is 



12 PREFACE 

continued, in a composite chapter, from 1910-1911 to 
the beginning of February, 19 16. 

The late M. Emile Ollivier, who was President 
of the Council when France declared war with 
Prussia in 1870, was not much beholden to English 
writers, some of whom have regarded him as a target 
for their barbed shafts. His own countrymen made 
the author of " L'Empire Liberal," the Emperor, 
the Empress and Marshal Bazaine scapegoats, 
and in France and England he has been held 
up to ridicule as the man who declared that he 
entered upon the war " with a light heart," his 
qualifying words being "burked." In many parts of 
Ollivier's gigantic work the Empress is a prominent 
figure. The final volume appeared in the autumn 
of 19 1 5, and of that and its predecessor I have given 
some account and a friendly letter (one of several) 
which I received from M. Ollivier in reference to 
some observations by her Majesty. 

As this volume is appearing at an opportune 
moment and will probably divert the thoughts of 
many to Farnborough Hill, I am emboldened to 
hope that some at least will be sufficiently sympathetic 
to fallen greatness to wish her (as I respectfully do) 
" many happy returns " on her " ninetieth " (May 5). 

E. L. 



CONTENTS 



I. The Empress's "Ninetieth" 
II. Le Quatorze Juillet, 19 15 

III. A Lifelong Friend of the Empress . 

IV. The Empress's Gift to Paris . 
V. Jean Baptiste Franceschini Pietri 

VI. The Empress Eugenie and her Son 
VII. M. Filon's "Life" 
VIII. Cardinal Bonaparte's Letters . 
IX. Emperor, Empress and Last Premier . 
X. The Empress in her own Country 
XI. Psychology of the Empress 
XII. A French Lady's " Appreciation " 

XIII. Rochefort and the Empress 

XIV. The Empress Eugenie's Family Tree . 
XV. The Empress's Tears 

XVI. The Empress's "Indiscretions" 

XVII. How THE Germans treated their Emperor 
Prisoner ..... 

XVIII. The " Little Man "... 

XIX. Fabled Wealth of the Napoleons 
13 



PAGE 

22 

29 

35 
38 
49 
58 
63 

77 
102 
III 

135 
142 

149 

157 
161 

172 
184 
188 



H 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

XX. Lord Granville and the Empress — Lady 
Cowley visits the Captive Emperor 

XXL Our Tribute to the " Little Prince " 

XXIL "Identifying" the Prince Imperial. 

XXIII. The Empress's Critics . 

XXIV. Louis Napoleon in London . 
XXV. Poets' Tributes .... 

XXVI. The Empress and Sarah Bernhardt 
XXVII. Some Voices that are still . 

XXVIII. BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WaR 

XXIX. The Empress a Successful Defendant 
XXX. Lampooning the Empress 
XXXI. The Prince who lived at Bayswater 
XXXII. Bazaine, Lebceuf, Canrobert and Napo 

LEON III. .... 

XXXIII. Parentage of Napoleon III. . 

XXXIV. The Empress, her Son and the Family 
Index ..... 



193 
200 

212 
227 

241 
245 
253 
259 
275 
287 

295 
299 

306 

311 
316 

380 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Empress Eugenie 
By Carpeaux 



Frontispiece 



The Empress Eugenie leaving the Church of 

the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street . To face page 32 -— 

The widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, nee Princess 

Anna Murat, and Princess Murat . ,, ,, 36 "^ 

The celebrated Due de Morny (Half-Brother of 

Napoleon III.) and his Wife . • >> >) 36 

The late M. Franceschini Pietri . • ;» » 38-^ 

Princess Pauline de Metternich . . >, i, 52 -— 

The late Countess Walewska . . • » >> 52 "'^ 

The Empress Eugenie, the Prince Imperial and 

Prince Murat . . . . ,, „ 60 "^ 

The Emperor Napoleon III. and the Prince 

Imperial . . . . • ji >j 60 _^ 

The King of Prussia (afterwards Emperor 

William I.) . . . . „ „ 78 -^ 

The present Kaiser, William II., at the age 

of four . . . . • >> » 78 

The Empress Eugenie . . . • >> n II4 — 

After the portrait by Winterhalttr 

The Empress Eugenie in the grounds of her 

Villa at Cap Martin . . • „ ,, 130 

Madame Adelina Patti (now Baroness Rolf 

Cederstrom) . . . • >) d 254 ^^ 

Madame Sarah Bernhardt in 1867 . • >, ,> 254 ^ 

15 



i6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Empress Eugenie before her Marriage 
The Empress en Crinoline 
The Empress Eugenie in 1915 . 
The Prince Imperial in Costume of the Imperial 
Hunt .... 

Prince Metternich 

The Empress Eugenie in Evening Costume 

The Empress Eugenie in State Robes . 

Napoleon III., the Prince Imperial and the 
Empress .... 

The Empress in Afternoon Dress 

The Empress and Prince Murat 

The Prince Imperial in Court Dress 



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CHAPTER I 

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 

MAY 5, 1916 

The little old lady — so very old — swathed in black 
of unfashionable cut, with no eyes for anything but 
her Prayer Book, follows the annual Mass of Requiem 
for her husband and her son at St Michael's Abbey, 
Farnborough, with the assiduity of a young nun in her 
novitiate. And presently she toils down the staircase 
to the crypt, the Imperial Mausoleum, and glances 
up at the cavity in the wall behind the altar in which 
she will sleep the last sleep. A strange idea, perhaps, 
but she is original in all she does and all she says, as 
some day the world — the English world — will learn 
for itself. It has fallen to my lot to see her in all her 
hours of agony — the passing of the Emperor at Chisle- 
hurst, the slaughter of her son by the Zulus' assegais 
and his burial within sight of his Kentish home, 
and the removal of the two coffins from the little church 
in the lane to the glorious fabric which she built on the 
knoll among the pines and the rhododendrons, which 
she can gaze upon from her room. She landed at 
Ryde from Sir John Burgoyne's yacht in September, 
1870, a fugitive — youthful-looking, sunny-faced, 
golden-haired, a paragon of beauty and grace — one 
(I suspect) of King Edward's " three most beautiful 
women I have ever seen." 

The Empress Eugenie's whim in 19 15 was to have 
B 17 



i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

her yacht fitted with a wireless installation. The 
Imperial idea would not have given occasion for 
comment in peace times ; but her friends at a distance 
marvelled as to what may have been her Majesty's 
object. 

The war had the effect of cutting the Empress 
off from France in a manner which she could never 
have seriously contemplated, although when the 
" declarations " began flying about in August, 19 14, 
she professed no surprise. As a rule she has passed 
the latter part of the winter and the early spring 
months at Cap Martin. She was in Italy shortly 
before the war broke out and returned to England in 
mid-July. 

One of the Empress's greatest delights is to see 
King George drive up to the picturesque house in which 
the most remarkable of women will probably end 
her days. The King, Queen Mary, the Prince of 
Wales and Princess Mary had a long chat with the 
Empress in 19 15, driving over from Aldershot. King 
Edward's son reminds her in many ways of her 
only child, the Prince Imperial, who was, however, 
nearly ten years King George's senior, and died at 
three-and-twenty. 

On the 29th of May, 19 15, the King and Queen 
(then at Aldershot) were accompanied to Farnborough 
Hill by Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria. 
The august widow of Edward VII. had not often 
visited the Empress, for whom she has the highest 
regard. The venerable lady could not restrain her 
emotion when greeting King George's mother. 
Needless to say. Prince and Princess Napoleon were 
gratified at this opportunity of meeting Queen 
Alexandra and her daughter. 



THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 19 

Few visitors to Farnborough Hill get a warmer 
welcome than the Due d'Albe, a descendant of the 
wealthy Spaniard who married the Empress's only 
sister some sixty odd years ago. That Duchesse 
d'Albe is supposed to have been preferred to her more 
beautiful sister, Eugenie, who had not at the time ever 
dreamt of one day becoming Empress of the French. 
The Due d'Albe, one of King Alfonso's intimates, 
is a champion polo player, and has been seen in many 
games with our crack poloists. He was among the 
Empress's visitors at Farnborough in 1915; and, 
as noted elsewhere, his brother, the Due de Penaranda, 
was the guest of her Majesty in the middle of 
December in the same year. 

Even in her dreams (and they were many), the 
Empress could never have imagined — 

That at the age of forty-four and three months she 
would be compelled to fly secretly from Paris and take 
refuge in England ; 

That less than three years later her consort, 
Napoleon III., would die quite unexpectedly at 
Chislehurst ; 

That in another half-dozen years her only son would 
be slain by Zulus; 

That, from and after the 8th of September, 1870, 
her permanent home would be England ; 

That forty-four years after Sedan and the dismem- 
berment of France by the Germans she would still 
be living, while the Kaiser's armies were once more 
attempting to conquer the country over which her 
husband had ruled and she had throned it for eighteen 
years ; 

And that two months before entering upon her 
ninetieth year the son of her dear friend, Edward VII., 



20 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

would, with his consort, their eldest son and their 
daughter, be " five-o'clocking " with her, Eugenie 
de Montijo, the one-time Empress of the French, at 
her beautiful Hampshire home. 

No crazy prophet or prophetess ever predicted 
any of these things, but, like so many other events in 
this marvellous woman's history, they have all come 
to pass, and none can say what may be in store for her 
between now and the celebration of her ninetieth 
birthday on the 5th of May, 19 16. 

Surely one of the strangest episodes in the Empress's 
long life of surprises is that which we witnessed for 
ourselves at the beginning of August, 19 14, when the 
Imperial mistress of Farnborough Hill, a refugee 
herself, threw open her doors to Prince (Victor) 
Napoleon, his wife and their children — all equally 
refugees ! The Prince is still theoretically the 
Bonapartist Pretender to the Throne of France, which 
has had no occupant since the 4th of September, 1870. 
Princess Clementine is a daughter of the late King 
of the Belgians, cousin of the present warrior-King, 
and she and her consort were living in their home of 
treasures. Avenue Louise, Brussels, when the rapid 
march of events converted them, like tens of thousands 
of others, into refugees. With their august relative 
they are, and have been from the first, thoroughly 
at home. That " Farnborough Hill " will ultimately 
be their permanent abode is now practically certain. 
They would be less happy at the Tuileries than among 
the Hampshire pine-trees. 

When, if ever. Princess Napoleon finds time hanging 
heavily on her hands, she can slip on an apron and 
become an infirmiere. To see and cheer her wounded 
compatriots she journeyed to Manchester — the first 



THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 21 

time a Princess Napoleon had been seen in those parts. 
She had only to be seen to conquer, for not only is she 
a beautiful woman, but versed in all those little ways 
which inspire admiration and love. Needless to say 
how the hearts of the sufferers went out to their 
charming compatriot or how delighted the Empress was 
to hear her experiences. 

The Empress passed her twenty-fourth successive 
season at Cap Martin in 19 14. The spring of 19 15 
found her in England, and here she will probably 
remain until the nations are at peace. 

A personage now seldom seen at Farnborough Hill 
stayed there for a few days in October, 19 15. This 
was the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, who is 
still often spoken of as Princess Anna Murat, her 
maiden name. She is the oldest surviving friend of 
the Empress. 

Although in all works of reference the Empress 
is described as " Eugenie de Montijo," she has always 
signed, and still signs, legal documents " Eugenie 
de Guzman," one of her twenty-one titles, fewer than 
those which were borne by her sister, the Duchesse 
d'Albe. 



CHAPTER II 

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 

The Empress Eugenie has lived to see France again 
invaded by the relentless foe of 1870; to see the 
armies of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Russia, 
Italy, Montenegro and Serbia massed against the 
Hunnish legions; and to see London and many 
provincial centres honour the Republic by an 
enthusiastic observance of the Fete Nationale ! 

In many respects the celebration in Monarchical 
England of the National Fete of the French Republic 
in 191 5 was the most striking episode in the history 
of the two countries for three centuries. It was 
one of those unanticipated events which confirm 
the Disraelian axiom : " It is the unexpected which 
always happens." While we are maintaining, and 
shall successfully maintain, the existence of the 
Republic it is well to remember that for centuries 
France was as Monarchical as England — that for a 
thousand years she was ruled by Kings and by two 
Emperors. Not to be forgotten, either, is the fact 
that, as recently as 1873, there was for a brief space 
the likelihood that France would again place a King 
on the overturned throne of her last Imperial ruler. 
In that year the Comte de Paris (grandson of Louis 
Philippe, who had abdicated and taken refuge in 
England as " Mr Smith" in 1848), and the other Princes 
of the Royal House of France, declared to the sensi- 
tive Comte de Chambord, then at Vienna, that they 

22 



LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 23 

recognised in him " the head of our House and the 
sole representative of the principle of Monarchy 
in France." But in the November of that year 
" Chambord," at Versailles, definitively refused to 
accept the tricolour and stubbornly stood out for the 
White flag as the emblem of sovereignty. From that 
moment it was " all up " with the Monarchy, and the 
National Assembly confided to Marshal MacMahon, 
Duke of Magenta, a Royalist sailing under Bonapartist 
colours, the powers appertaining to the Presidency of 
the Republic for seven years. France has flourished 
under the wise rule of the Republic, which was never 
stronger, never more deeply rooted in the hearts of the 
people, than on the anniversary (July 14, 19 15) of 
the taking of the Bastille, the opening event of the 
French Revolution, the anniversary likewise of the 
liberation of France. 

The Royalists had sworn that, come what may, 
the Bastille should never be given over to the " Reds," 
the originators of that " Terror " with which every 
schoolboy is supposed to be familiar. Its custodian 
was one De Launay, and Carlyle has depicted it in its 
death throes : " What shall De Launay do ? One 
thing only De Launay could have done : what he said 
he would do. Fancy him sitting from the first with 
lighted taper within arm's length of the Powder Magaz- 
ine; motionless, like old Roman Senator or Bronze 
Lampholder ; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, 
by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was. 
Harmless he sat there while unharmed; but the 
King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or 
should, in nowise be surrendered save to the King's 
Messenger : one old man's life is worthless, so it be 
lost with honour; but think, ye brawling mob, how it 



24 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

will be when the whole Bastille springs skyward. 
And yet, withal, he could not do it. . . . De Launay 
could not do it. Distracted, he hovers between two 
hopes in the middle of despair; surrenders not his 
Fortress ; declares that he will blow it up, and does not 
blow it. Unhappy old De Launay, it is the death- 
agony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jailering and 
Jailer, all three, such as they may have been, must 
finish." 

The first to " finish " was the " Jail," the Bastille, 
which, after the outbreak of the Revolution, was 
attacked and razed to the ground on July 14, 1789. 

Every year the French Royalists commemorate 
the tragedy enacted on that winter day in 1793, the 
execution of Louis XVL They assembled, as of 
yore, on the 21st of January 19 15, at the church of 
Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois, formerly the parish of the 
Kings of France, when Mass was celebrated for the 
repose of the august victim of the " Terror." It was 
the 122nd anniversary of the crime. There were to 
be seen the fine fleur of Parisian Royalist society — 
the presidents of the Royalist Committees, the pro- 
vincial delegates of the Due d'Orleans (the banished 
Pretender to the Throne), and Baron Tristan Lambert, 
formerly a Bonapartist, who accompanied the Empress 
Eugenie's son, the Prince Imperial, to the little church 
at Chislehurst on the morning of his departure for 
Zululand, there to meet his fate at three-and-twenty. 

The register of death was not drawn up until two 
months after the execution of Louis XVI. This 
document is now in the archives of the City of 
Paris, and it is a memento of the event which may be 
recalled a propos of the National Fete. It is textually 
as follows : — 



LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 25 

" Monday, i8th March 1793, second year of the 
Republic. Act of decease of Louis Capet on the 21st 
of January last, at 22 minutes past 10 in the morn- 
ing. Profession — last King of the French. Age — 
39. Native of Versailles, in the parish of Notre 
Dame. Residing at Paris, Tour du Temple. Mar- 
ried to Marie Antoinette of Austria. The said Louis 
Capet [was] executed on the Place de la Revolution 
in accordance with the decrees of the National 
Convention." 

The " Acte de Deces " states that the execution 
took place in the presence of two members of the 
Directory of the Seine, the commissaires deputed by 
the Provincial Executive Council, and two commis- 
saires of the Paris Municipality. 

The Fete Nationale of to-day is the Fete Imperiale 
of yesterday. " Change but the name, and the tale 
is told of " it. The latter, founded by the Great 
Corsican, was kept on the 1 5th of August, the Church 
Festival of the Assumption, and it was celebrated for 
the last time in 1869. When the next Assumption 
Day came France, after thirteen fateful days' fighting, 
was being pulverised and disintegrated by the pre- 
decessors of the ruthless foes of 1914-1916. But 
that would not have happened had the Anglo-French 
Alliance been in existence. 

The reasons for the defeat in 1870 have been elo- 
quently and adequately explained by M. Emile Ollivier 
and many other authorities of varying degrees of 
eminence. Of these one of the most recent is General 
Bazaine-Hayter, who, in an elaborate defence of his 
relative, Marshal Bazaine, from one of innumerable 
attacks, wrote in 191 1 : — 



26 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

" It took a fortnight to get together 203,000 men, 
who were opposed to 434,000 perfectly-equipped 
Germans. We had made no preparations. There 
were no horses for the artillery reserve and the wagons 
carrying the bridges (pontoons) ; no tools for making 
trenches. Our mitrailleuses arrived direct from the 
manufacturers, and those who were to serve them were 
quite ignorant. Our artillery was inferior in numbers 
and in efficiency — in short, powerless. We had no 
regularly-formed service for the transport of food. 
Our formation in battle, which was old even in 1859, 
was entirely out of date. Our rosters were thirty 
years old. Our method of command was very defec- 
tive, and without initiative. These were the causes of 
our defeats — of all our defeats." 

From the middle of August the functions of the 
generals in the field were usurped by the Empress and 
General de Palikao. Distracted by telegrams from 
the Tuileries, Marshal MacMahon made the fatal 
mistake of concentrating all his available forces in and 
near Sedan. " Now we have got him in the mouse- 
trap," said Moltke. It was true. 

We English did not " take our pleasure sadly " in 
Paris year after year on the 15th of August. Our 
language was heard on all sides, just as French now 
rings in our ears in London. Perhaps the Imperial 
Fete and the National Fete resembled each other 
in many of their features ; but those who, like myself, 
saw the Napoleonic festival " with their eyes " retain 
memories of its unsurpassable splendours and its 
myriad gaieties. The French have a great liking and 
respect for dates. The 14th of July 19 15 was, then, a 
" date " of high import alike for Republicans, 



LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 27 

Royalists and Bonapartists. France had her " great " 
year in 1867, when the Napoleonic star was at its 
brightest. It was the year of the Exhibition, the 
fourteenth which had been held since 1798 (" Year 6 " 
of the Republic). The sovereigns of the world and 
members of their families foregrathered in Paris at the 
invitation of Napoleon III. and his Empress. Of the 
Imperial guests there is one specially notable survivor, 
the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Among the visitors 
were the grandfather and the father of Kaiser William 
II., both of whom three years later were leading 
their forces against those of their former Imperial 
entertainers. The Prince of Wales (Edward VII.) 
represented England on behalf of Queen Victoria : 
with him were two of his brothers, the late Duke of 
Edinburgh and the surviving Duke of Connaught. 
Survivors (in 1916) included the wealthy Duchesse 
de Mouchy (Princesse Anna Murat), the Duchesse de 
Conegliano (widow of the Chamberlain of the Em- 
peror's Household), the Princesse Pauline de Metter- 
nich (widow of the Austrian Ambassador to France 
until 1870), and others whom it boots not to mention. 
In the golden days of 1867 the last things thought of 
were war with Germany and the overthrow of the 
Empire in 1870, the internment of Napoleon III. at 
Wilhelmshohe for nearly seven months, and the 
establishment of a Republic, the third of its kind since 
the accession to the throne of a Bourbon. 

In 1870 and during a portion of 1871 France had 
a Government of National Defence; in 1871 Adolphe 
Thiers became the first President of the Republic, 
and so remained until 1873; and since then France 
has had as Presidents MacMahon, Grevy, F. Sadi 
Carnot (assassinated), Casimir Perier, Felix Faure, 



28 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Emile Loubet, Armand Fallieres and Raymond 
Poincare. The three latter have been familiarised 
to us by their visits to London. MM. Loubet and 
Fallieres were the guests of King Edward, King 
George entertained M. Poincare in 19 13. The state 
visit to Paris of King George and his consort in 19 14 
did much to consolidate the happy relations between 
the two countries which originated with Edward VI L 
in 1903, and may now be considered indissoluble. 



CHAPTER III 

A LIFELONG FRIEND OF THE EMPRESS 

Madame Christine Vaughan de Arcos died on 
November 24, 19 13, aged seventy-eight. She married 
Don Domingo de Arcos in 1859, and from then till 
1872, when she became a widow, she lived in Paris. 
Her mother had known the Empress as a child, and 
so when she came to Paris she was brought into touch 
with the Imperial Family. But it was after the 
Empress came to England that Madame de Arcos 
really came to enjoy her close friendship. She never 
held any actual appointment in the Empress's entour- 
age, but she was her constant companion, and was with 
her during the years of her heaviest troubles. At one 
period the Empress went every year to Scotland 
to stay at Abergeldie, which Queen Victoria placed 
at her disposal, and in these visits to the north 
Madame de Arcos always accompanied her. 

At the funeral, at Brewood, Staffordshire, on 
November 29, the chief mourners were Mrs Vaughan 
(sister), Captain Ernest Vaughan and Miss Vaughan. 
Among the floral and other tributes were a wreath from 
Queen Alexandra, with card attached, " In Sorrowing 
Remembrance, from Alexandra," the Empress 
Eugenie, Princess Henry of Battenberg, the Duchess 
of Rutland, Mary Duchess of Hamilton, the Duchesse 
de Mouchy, Earl and Countess Bathurst, the Earl 
of Lisburne and Lady Enid Vaughan, the Countess 
of Lisburne, Countess Amherst, the Earl and Countess 
29 



30 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of Dartmouth, the Earl and Countess of Bradford, 
Sir William and Lady Noreen Bass, Mr and Mrs 
Leopold de Rothschild, Mrs Standish, Sir Henry 
and Lady Chamberlain, Lord and Lady Stamfordham. 
Captain George Vaughan; Erny, Louise and Eddy, 
the servants at 21 Wilton Crescent, and the servants 
at Lapley. 

The Empress sent (and it was placed on the coffin) 
a large bunch of South African rushes, the produce of 
the original plants which she brought back from 
Zululand after her visit to the Prince Imperial's 
grave in 1880 (the year after his death). The Em- 
press received messages of sympathy from the King, 
Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of Battenberg and 
other members of the Royal Family. 

A solemn High Mass of Requiem for the repose of 
the soul of Madame de Arcos was sung at the Church 
of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, on 
November 29. The celebrant was the Rev. Father 
George Pollen, the Deacon was Father J. Bampton, 
and Father Ryan acted as Sub-Deacon. During the 
seating of the congregation Mr J. F. Brewer played 
Chopin's " Marche Funebre " and other voluntaries. 
A catafalque was placed outside the chancel rails and 
covered with a purple pall of velvet. The music 
of the Mass was Gregorian, harmonised, con- 
ducted by Mr J. F. Smith, the Director of Music, and 
the offertory was Neidermeyer's " Pie Jesu." The 
mourners were received at the west door by the 
Rev. Father Charles Nicholson, the Superior, who 
presented them with the goupillon (the holy-water 
sprinkler). 

The Queen of Spain was present, attended by the 
Duke of Santa Mauro and the Duchess of San Carlos. 



A LIFELONG FRIEND 31 

Her Majesty was accompanied by Princess Henry of 
Battenberg, who was attended by Lieutenant-Colonel 
Cuthbertson and Miss Minnie Cochrane. The Em- 
press Eugenie was also present, attended by Madame 
d'Attainville and the late Monsieur Franceschini Pietri. 

Others in the congregation were the Spanish Am- 
bassador and Madame Merry del Val, the Argentine 
Minister and Madame Dominguez, the Marquise 
d'Hautpoul, Alice Countess Amherst, Countess 
Koenigsmarck, the Dowager Countess de la Warr, 
Lord Lisburne, Lord and Lady Stamfordham, Lady 
William Nevill, Lady Margaret Orr-Ewing, Lady 
Margaret Douglas, Lady Chetwode, Lady Enid 
Vaughan, the Hon. Lady Oliphant, Colonel the Hon. 
Francis Colborne, Sir Henry and Lady Chamberlain, 
Mrs Thorold, Dr Procter, Mrs Silvertop, Mr Carlisle 
Spedding, Mrs John Delacour, Mrs Scott Murray, 
Mrs Edward Eyre, Mrs Lawrence Currie, Mrs Rod- 
rick Segrave, Miss Alice Bagot, Mrs and Miss de 
Halpert, Mr and Mrs J. Mott, Madame Specht, Lieu- 
tenant R. F. Eyre, R.N., Mrs Murray of Polmaise, 
Mrs Bedingfield, Miss Rosamond Grosvenor and the 
author of this work. 

The solemnity in the Farm Street Church was a 
striking episode in the English life of the widow of 
Napoleon III. and mother of the Prince Imperial. 
I write under correction, but, as far as my memory goes, 
it was the first time the Empress had been seen in a 
London church as one of the ordinary congregation. 
I know of no record to the contrary; but I may be 
under a misapprehension. Perhaps it is safer to say 
that it was the first time her Imperial Majesty had 
attended a funeral service for one of her friends in 
a Metropolitan church, strange as this may appear. 



32 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

I do not remember hearing that she had ever before 
or since Lord Sydney's funeral attended a Protestant 
service. Although it had occurred to me that her 
Majesty might possibly, out of her love for Madame 
de Arcos, nerve herself to the ordeal of attending the 
Requiem Mass, her absence would not have surprised 
me. I am sure very few of the congregation, apart 
from relatives and intimate friends, were aware of her 
intention; nor did all the Jesuit Fathers know of it, 
for one to whom I announced it looked incredulous. 

The Requiem began at eleven o'clock. Ten minutes 
or so later all doubts were dispelled by the principal 
officiant, attended by three acolytes, proceeding to 
the entrance door, and we who were standing there 
saw the Empress slowly ascending the steps, gently 
assisted by M. Pietri and Madame d'Attainville. 
Stopping for a moment, the Empress made the holy 
sign, in accordance with the Spanish, not the English, 
usage (there is a slight difference between the two), 
and, preceded by the reverend Father and the boys, 
walked up the nave to the chair reserved for her on 
the left of and close to the catafalque, which was 
covered by a magnificent gold-embroidered pall and 
flanked by three large tapers on either side. Immed- 
iately opposite were the Queen of Spain and her 
mother. The Empress walked to her place unassisted. 
She did not use the familiar ebony cane as a walking- 
stick, but occasionally tapped the floor with it. She 
gave me the impression of being stronger and in better 
health generally than when I had last seen her in the 
Imperial Mausoleum at Farnborough on the 9th of 
January 19 12, the date of the annual memorial service 
for the Emperor. As on that occasion, so now, she sat, 
knelt, and stood, like everybody else, throughout 




The EMi'KKSi, Eugemf, (Mme. d'Attainvii.i.e and the 

LATE M. PlETKI ON EIIHER SIDE) l.EAVI.\(; THE ChURCH 

OF THE Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, 
London, after the funeral service for her \>Eyr>TED 

FRIEND, MmE. DE ARCOS, NoVKMRER 29, I913. HnE OF 

THE Empress's rare \isits to a London chlkch 



A LIFELONG FRIEND ^^ 

the whole of the service, rising from her kneeling posi- 
tion without any effort; yet in May, 19 16, she will be 
ninety, and will then have been among us close upon 
forty-six years, one-half of her lifetime. During 
the service she did not lift her eyes from the gilt- 
edged Prayer Book which she brought with her. 
At first she read without the use of glasses, but after 
a few minutes (the light not being particularly strong) 
she put on her pince-nez, and did not remove it until 
the service ended. 

Upon rising she was immediately greeted, close to 
the catafalque, by her Royal god-daughter and Princess 
Henry of Battenberg, whom apparently she had 
not expected to see. Again without any apparent 
effort the Empress walked to the door. The scene 
here is difficult to adequately describe. I tax my 
memory in vain for its parallel. As the Empress stood 
at the entrance, her back to the wall, waiting for her 
" auto," she was the object of a truly extraordinary 
demonstration, which seemingly amazed, and perhaps 
momentarily dazed, her. Her many friends of both 
sexes hastened to greet her. While some ladies 
grasped her hand and kissed it, others laid an arm on 
her shoulder and embraced her on the cheek. Men 
knelt and kissed her hand. She was greeted in 
Spanish, French and English, and to all she essayed 
to address an affectionate word or two. Something of 
her old winning smile lit up her pale face as she re- 
ceived this homage, and she looked the thanks for which 
she could not find utterance. All the men stood with 
bared heads as at length she departed for Farnborough 
Hill. 

The Empress, despite her grief at the loss of so 
dear a friend as Madame de Arcos was to her for some 



34 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

forty years, appeared to be in the most satisfactory 
state of health. Before the day was over I received 
from a friend at Brussels information that there was 
a general impression in the Belgian capital (Prince 
Napoleon's then home) that the Empress was very ill. 
I was even begged to telegraph her exact condition. 
I communicated the facts, which were made known by 
the Brussels Press. 

Probate of the will of Madame de Arcos, dated Janu- 
ary 17, 1908, was granted to her niece. Miss Louise 
Mary Vaughan, 21 Wilton Crescent. The testatrix 
bequeathed ;^5oo to that lady, ;^iooo to her nephew, 
Captain Ernest Mallet Vaughan, of the Grenadier 
Guards; ;!^iooo to her nephew, Captain George 
Edmund Vaughan, Coldstream Guards; £ 100 to her 
brother, George Augustus Vaughan, and the residue 
of her estate to her sister, Mary Vaughan, whom 
failing, to her niece, Louise Mary Vaughan, absolutely. 
The total amount of the estate was ^26,974. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EMPRESS'S GIFT TO PARIS 

In January 19 14 Parisians learnt, to their intense 
surprise and gratification, that the Empress Eugenie, 
who had been prohibited from permanently residing in 
France for more than twenty years after the war of 
1870-1871, had purchased for ;^ 12,000 a piece of land, 
from 25,000 to 30,000 metres in extent, adjoining 
the part of La Malmaison with which the names of 
Napoleon I., his mother and the Empress Josephine 
will be always associated. 

Immediately after the death of the Prince Imperial 
in Zululand (June i, 1879), a committee was formed 
in Paris in order to provide a lasting memorial of 
the only child of Napoleon III. and the Empress 
Eugenie. The committee was presided over by Prince 
Joachim Murat, and among its members were the 
Due de Mouchy, the Due de Cambaceres, the Due 
d'Albufera, the Due de Padoue, the Due de Cadore, 
Prince de la Moskowa and Baron Haussmann. There 
was also a Press Committee, of which there is a sur- 
viving member in that popular journalist, M. Arthur 
Meyer, in whose paper, the " Gaulois," the general 
committee's statement of the object in view was pub- 
lished. This document was as follows : — 

" The moment the news of the death of the Prince 
Imperial was made known in Paris, it was resolved to 
35 



36 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

open a subscription for perpetuating his memory 
by erecting a monument, and a committee was 
immediately formed to give the movement a national 
sanction. A great neighbouring country showed itself 
jealous of its national duties towards our beloved 
Prince, and we cannot enter into rivalry with England, 
which jdesires to give him a place in Westminster 
Abbey among the most illustrious of her men of whom 
she is proud. But there remains for us a means 
of giving to the memory of the Prince the one thing 
which he would have preferred above all others, and 
that is to raise in his own country a simple monument 
to perpetuate our inconsolable sorrow. A chapel in 
the centre of Paris, which saw him grow up and loved 
him, would consecrate for ever the explosion of grief 
caused by the heroic death of a Prince who, in 
his last crusade, knew how to die like St Louis after 
having known how to pray like him. Politics, with 
their implacable hatreds and burning passions, have 
not yet had time to obscure that dazzling youthf ulness, 
that indomitable courage, that faith so living, that 
life so pure. He did not reign until after his death. 
It is to this son of France, this soldier falling in heroic 
combat, this youth over whom all women have wept 
with a patriotic solidarity of heart, this proud and 
saintly figure before whom all Parties were disarmed, 
that we wish to give an asylum upon French soil. 
Being unable to bring back his body, we wish at 
least to have his soul among us, so that it may find 
its home here." 

M. Arthur Meyer added these few words to the 
above : " It was in the office of the ' Gaulois ' that the 
idea of raising a fund originated on the personal 




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THE EMPRESS'S GIFT TO PARIS -^^ 

initiative of M. Tarbe. To-day it has become some- 
thing of a national work." 

By the 6th of September the subscriptions amounte'd 
to over ;^4430. A piece of land (which had been sold 
by the Ministry of War) in the Avenue de la 
Bourdonnais was purchased, and on it, close to 
the house No. 6, a little " chapel," or rather 
"temple," was erected by the architect Destailleurs. 
M. d'Epinay made a bronze bust, to be placed on a 
pedestal in the little " temple." Eleven years passed, 
and the pedestal had not been completed. The 
bust had been executed several years previously, 
and remained in the house No. 6, next to the residence 
of the Comte de Poix. There appears to have been 
some apprehension lest " roughs " should overturn, 
or steal, the bust, or in some way damage it. So 
matters apparently remained when the whole subject 
came up for discussion in January, 19 14, consequent 
upon the Empress's acquisition of land at La Mal- 
maison, whither the " temple " and the bust have been 
removed. 

The Empress's simple intentions in 19 14 were singu- 
larly misinterpreted by some Paris journals, and the 
mistakes reappeared in London papers. It was said 
that her Majesty desired to have the " tomb " of the 
Prince Imperial taken from the Imperial Mausoleum 
at St Michael's, Farnborough, to the Malmaison ! 
One paper boldly spoke of the intended removal of 
" the Prince's mausoleum." 



CHAPTER V 

JEAN BAPTISTE FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 

Died December 14, 1915 

On the coffin lid, in large gilded raised letters, was 
inscribed : " Franceschini Pietri. Aged 82." Pietri 
was his mother's maiden name. In private documents 
he signed " Jean Baptiste Franceschini." The 
London papers, in recording his death, described 
him as the " son of that Prefect of Police in Paris 
who, on September 4, 1870, rushed into the Tuileries 
crying : ' We cannot resist. . . . The one hope for her 
Majesty lies in immediate flight.' " Other accounts 
stated that the deceased accompanied the Empress 
on her flight from Paris to England. He was not 
the son of any Prefect of Paris : he was the nephew 
of two Prefects, both Pietris. When the Empress 
crossed the Channel in Sir John Burgoyne's yacht, 
M. Pietri was with the Emperor, the prisoner of the 
Emperor William I., at Wilhelmshohe. These are 
the facts, as opposed to the newspaper fictions. 

The Lord Abbot, the Very Reverend Dom Cabrol, 
officiated at the High Requiem Mass which was cele- 
brated in the Abbey Church, on December 17, at 
half -past ten. The deacon was the Rev. Pere Boudot, 
and the subdeacon the Rev. Pere Cluzel. A dozen 
members of the Benedictine community assisted, all 
these wearing the black robes of the order. There 

38 




TUK LATE M. KkANCESCHIM I'lKTRI, WHO DIED AT 

THE Empress Eugenie's ke;side.\ce, Farnhokou(;h 
Hiu., IN 1915. He was successively Secretary 

OK NaI'OI.EoX III, THE PRINCE IMPERIAL AND THE 

Empress. He knew all the secrets t)K the 

Second Empire, and was the Empress's conei- 

dant until his ulatii, ac.icd S2 



FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 39 

was no instrumental music. At the conclusion of the 
Mass the Lord Abbot, the priests and the whole of 
the congregation walked in procession through the 
shrubbery and the monks' cemetery to the grave, 
where the concluding portions of the service were said 
by Dom Cabrol. Immediately behind the coffin 
(which had been placed in the crypt, the Imperial 
Mausoleum, on Wednesday, and there remained until 
the day of the burial, when it was taken into the church) 
walked H.I.H. Prince Napoleon. Next came the 
deceased's niece, Mile Baciocchi * and the other 
mourners and friends. When the Lord Abbot's final 
words had been said all present sprinkled holy water 
on the coffin, Prince Napoleon being the first and the 
Empress's chauffeur the last to do so. The grave, 
which was lined with laurel leaves, is close to the 
church, near the entrance to the crypt. Three 
invalided British soldiers were spectators of the burial. 
They had walked over from Farnborough Court, 
the property of the Benedictines, who had generously 
devoted it to the use of wounded and invalided soldiers. 
In the autumn of 19 15 the Lord Abbot placed the 
" Court " at the disposal of the Government. 

Not more than about fifty persons, all told, attended 
the obsequies. Among them, besides Prince Napo- 
leon, I recognised the Due de Peneranda (brother 
of the Due d'Albe, one of whose predecessors was the 
husband of the Empress's only sister), the Comte de 
Mora and his wife (nee De Lesseps), Miss Vaughan 
(niece of the late Mme de Arcos and daughter of that 

* Elise Baciocchi was a cousin of Napoleon III. Comte 
Baciocchi held a high position at the Imperial Court, and his 
wife left a very handsome legacy to the Prince Imperial ; the 
gift (landed property) passed into the hands of the Empress. 



40 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

lady's sister), Mrs Blount (nee De Bassano), Mile de 
Bassompierre (Princess Napoleon's dame d'honneur), 
Mme d'Attainville, Mile Gaubert (who dispenses 
the Empress's bounties), Sir Thomas Lipton (on 
board whose yacht the Empress celebrated one of her 
birthdays cruising in the Mediterranean seven or 
eight years ago), Mr Victor Corkran and Mr Edmon- 
ston (representing Princess Henry of Battenberg and 
Princess Christian, intimate friends of the Empress 
since her arrival in England in the autumn of 1870), 
Miss Dalrymple and Miss Hollings (two of the Red 
Cross nurses attached to the Benedictines' hospital 
at Farnborough Court), Mr Hollings (father of the 
last-mentioned lady), Dr Smith (the French doctor who 
accompanied M. Pietri on his last journey to England 
from Paris), Colonel Scott (whose brother, Dr Scott, 
embalmed the Prince Imperial's body at the Cape in 
1879), and M. Pietri's French nurse. 

Princess Napoleon, much to her regret, was unable 
to attend the funeral ; she remained with the Empress 
during the celebration of the low Mass for the deceased 
in her Majesty's Oratory at half -past ten, when the 
officiant was the Rev. Pere Eudine, of St Michael's 
Abbey. Shortly after the obsequies the Princess, 
accompanied by the Prince, visited the grave. 

M. Pietri passed for a wealthy man. 

I first made M. Pietri's acquaintance at Chislehurst. 
At that time I was attached to the " Morning Post " 
staff and was also reading for the Bar. On the day 
of the Emperor's death I hastened to Chislehurst 
and had an interview with Pietri, who declined to give 
me any information relating to the Emperor's death. 
But the venerable Due de Bassano was very communi- 
cative, so that I was fortunately able to furnish " my 



FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 41 

paper " with a fairly complete report on the following 
day. * 

I was in frequent corresponHence with M. Pietri 
until a year or so before his death. Some of his 
letters to me appear in the two works here referred to. 
Both have been largely circulated in English-speaking 
countries, and are still in demand in 19 16. An edition, 
in French, of the first of these books will be 
issued by MM. Pierre Lafitte et Cie., the well-known 
Paris publishers. No other work of the kind has been 
translated. 

M. Pietri's short, sturdy figure was not very familiar 
to our public, although he had lived among us, off and 
on, since early in 1871. He passed through our 
streets unrecognised, save by a very few. He never 
showed any desire to mingle with London society. 
He was absorbed in his arduous secretarial duties, 
which left him scant leisure for recreation of any 
kind. Many who had never before set eyes upon him 
saw him with the Empress at the funeral service 
for Mme de Arcos at the Jesuits' Church, in Farm 
Street, Berkeley Square, on the 29th of November, 
191 3. He then appeared to me to be in quite good 
health. It was only in 19 15 that his friends began to 
be anxious about him. In the autumn he had gone 
officially to Paris, where the illness began which 
prevented him from leaving the Hotel Crillon until 
towards the end of November. Those who met him 
on his arrival at Farnborough saw that the end was 

* In my previous volumes, " The Empress Eugenie : 
1870 — 1910," and "The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second 
Empire," will be found the full story of the lives of the Imperial 
exiles. Published by Harper & Brothers, London and New 
York. 



42 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

approaching. Upon alighting from the train he 
insisted upon first being driven to St Michael's Abbey 
and descending to the crypt, the Imperial Mausoleum, 
where are the tombs of the Emperor and the Prince 
Imperial. Before them he knelt and prayed — then 
passed on to his home, the residence of the Empress. 
He had so weakened that it was necessary to support 
him as he tottered down and up the steps in the crypt. 

In 1848, just before the Revolution, Louis Napo- 
leon, after his many adventures, returned to France. 
From the day of his arrival Mocquard was by his side, 
became chef du cabinet of the Prince-President, 
and was one of his ablest collaborators in the pre- 
paration of the coup d'etat (December 2, 185 1) The 
then Prefect of Police was M. de Maupas. When 
the Empire was made Mocquard retained his former 
position, and later became a Senator and Grand Officer 
of the Legion d'Honneur. For some years before 
his death he was regarded as one of the grands 
ecrivains of the period and a successful dramatic 
author. M. Conti (another famous figure of the 
Second Empire) succeeded Mocquard as the chief of 
the Emperor's cabinet, with a salary of twelve hundred 
pounds a year and " free lodgings." Conti had 
neither the entrain nor the brilliance of Mocquard. 

Before Franceschini Pietri entered the Emperor's 
service the chef de cabinet of his Majesty was that 
M. Mocquard, a very old friend of Napoleon III. 
In 1817, thirty-five years before the nephew of the 
Great Emperor assumed the Imperial dignity, Moc- 
quard, while " travelling on business in Germany "• 
(I take this to mean that he was a commercial traveller), 
had the good fortune to be presented, at Arenenberg, 
to Queen Hortense, mother of the future Emperor. 



FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 43 

He so ingratiated himself with the royal lady that 
she invited him to visit her again, and thenceforth 
he became her attached friend and a fervent admirer 
of her then comparatively unknown son, Louis 
Napoleon. Both Mocquard and F. Pietri came, in 
due course, in close contact with that celebrated 
personage the Due de Morny, who was the illegitimate 
son of Queen Hortense, and consequently the half- 
brother of Napoleon III. So proud was De Morny 
of his birth that he had " hortensias " painted on the 
panels of his carriage in lieu of a coat of arms. To 
put an end to this scandal, which impaired the prestige 
of the dynasty, the Emperor granted his relative 
a new coat of arms, conditional on the removal of the 
offending emblem. It was De Morny who, when 
asked how he contrived to get into the Chamber 
of Deputies, replied : " I promised all who voted for 
me an eclipse of the sun ! " 

Pietri was selected by M. Mocquard as a copyist of 
documents. Thus he had often occasion to approach 
his Majesty, whom he pleased by his modest and 
reserved manner. Becoming private secretary of the 
Emperor, he accompanied his Imperial Majesty 
everywhere, and always, even to Italy during the 
war in 1859. From that date the Emperor's various 
ciphers (chiffres) were given into his charge; he was 
with Napoleon in the war of 1870, remained with 
him during his seven months' captivity at Wilhelms- 
hohe (September, 1870 — March, 1871), and came to 
England with the deposed Sovereign. 

Pietri's life until 1870 was a very full one. He 
received all reports and dispatches, and answered 
them. Typewriting had not then been invented. 
He lived at the Tuileries, and, except when there were 



44 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

balls or State visits to the opera and other theatres, 
passed the whole of his time at the side of the Emperor. 
His heaviest work was in the evening, when most 
of the important dispatches poured in. Pietri lived 
tres en camarade with all the members of the Imperial 
household, of whom the chief was the late Due (then 
Marquis) de Conegliano, whose widow was surviving 
in March 19 16. Gay and amiable as Pietri then 
was, he had no time for amusement. He had only at 
his disposal one or two half-evenings weekly when at 
the Tuileries, and not even those when the Emperor 
and Empress were at their other residences. He 
retained his secretarial functions with the Emperor 
in England, then with the Prince Imperial and 
Empress, and finally, until his death, with the Empress. 

The historical importance of Franceschini Pietri 
has never been recognised by the English Press. He 
was not, I think, ever made the subject of personal 
articles. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was 
regarded as a nullity. Of the English " interviewer " 
he had a horror; but he surrendered to one or two 
French journalists, and talked with them upon certain 
misrepresentations of the Empress which had appeared 
in the Paris papers — never, however, in the "Figaro" 
or the " Gaulois." The brief paragraphs published 
from time to time in the first-named paper were 
always accurate, because they were communicated 
to it by the secretary at Farnborough Hill. The 
short notices of his death were all more or less inaccu- 
rate, some of them absurdly so, even, in one or two 
cases, to the misspelling of his name " Pietrie." 

He succeeded in surrounding the Empress with 
a screen. " At Palaces," wrote the late Arminius 
Vambery to me from Budapest, " the blinds are always 



FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 45 

down." They were certainly seldom " up " either 
at Chislehurst or at Farnborough Hill. Pietri once 
told me that the Empress never read anything which 
was published about her. But that, I know, was not 
precisely accurate. I heard a very different story 
from at least one who was for years a most intimate 
friend of the Imperial lady. The fact remains, 
however, that Pietri was " the power behind the 
throne." 

M. Filon acknowledges that he could not have 
produced his elaborate " Life " of the Prince Imperial 
without the assistance of his devoted collaborators, 
Franceschini Pietri and the Abbe Misset (of Paris). 
Pietri's " unexampled fidelity made him for more 
than half a century the witness of the intimate 
existence and the confidant of the thoughts of the 
Imperial family, and was my guide " in matters 
relating to the later years of the young Prince. The 
Empress and Pietri endeavoured to dissuade him 
from going to the Cape. Pietri offered to accompany 
the Prince on his fatal journey, but he would take 
no one with him except his valet, Uhlmann, who 
died at Farnborough Hill a few years ago. 

The Prince, we are reminded by M. Filon, spent his 
last night at Camden Place, Chislehurst, on February 
26-27, 1879. On the morning of the 27th Pietri 
entered the Prince's room very early. The Prince 
handed him his will, which he had dated and signed, 
and Pietri placed the document in an iron box, which 
the secretary locked and sealed, taking charge of 
the key. The Prince then went to the little Church 
of St Mary (Baron Tristan Lambert accompanying 
him), and received from Monsignor Goddard, another 
devoted friend, his last Communion in England. All 



46 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

those named travelled to Southampton with the Prince 
and saw him depart for the Cape. 

On the 2 1 St of April the Prince wrote to Pietri 
explaining his future movements with our troops. " I 
have just returned from a reconnaissance," he said. 
" We were absent six days. There have been shots 
on both sides, but nothing serious. We remained 
in the saddle twenty hours of the twenty-four." 

When the body was brought to Woolwich Prince 
Murat placed in the coffin a religious medal and 
Pietri deposited in it a medal (struck during the 
Imperial reign) bearing on one side an effigy of the 
Prince in his infancy. The medal had been given 
to Pietri by the Emperor. The secretary then kissed 
the forehead of the young victim of the Zulus' 
assegais (as did Monsignor Goddard), and the coffin 
was closed and taken to Chislehurst. The Empress 
never saw the remains of her son. Why? 

The Empress's late secretary was only thirty-seven 
when he accompanied his Imperial master from Sedan 
to Wilhelmshohe. General Count von Monts, * who 
was in charge of the captive Sovereign, writes : 
"Of Corsican origin and cousin [nephew] of the 
former Prefet of Police in Paris, M. Franceschini 
Pietri, as private secretary, was in the closest contact 
with the Emperor. To him were confided those of 
his Majesty's letters which required special attention. 
His services were naturally of the greatest value to the 
Emperor, for no one else was kept, as Pietri was, 
au courant of everything. He seldom left the 
Emperor's ante-chamber, which he had arranged as 
a little office. Here he was at his master's beck and 
call day and night. If he was engaged with the 
* Vide Chapter XVII. 



FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 47 

Emperor when I arrived Pietri hastily gathered 
up his papers and left the room. I seldom had 
occasion to speak with him, but he gave me the 
impression of a man faithfully devoted to the Emperor. 
He continued to show himself devoted to the Imperial 
family, for he followed Napoleon III. to England, 
and after the Emperor's death he remained in the 
service of the Empress." 

Early in March, 1871, a fortnight or so before 
the Emperor's release from captivity, a great sensation 
was caused at Versailles (the headquarters of the 
German Emperor, as King William had become 
in the previous January) and Berlin by the publication 
of a " Petition of the French Army," which was 
widely circulated. " It seemed," says General Monts, 
" to have been drawn up by the French officers who 
were interned in Germany. At the headquarters 
at Versailles the document was supposed to have 
emanated from Wilhelmshohe, and it was sent to me 
in order that I might discover the authors. It was 
absolutely in our interest, and even, I may say, in that 
of all Europe, to nip in the bud everything which 
might produce complications. My investigations 
showed that Pietri was one of the principal authors 
of the petition." All that apparently happened was 
that Monts ordered the Director of Telegraphs to 
send him, in future, copies of all telegrams dispatched 
from Wilhelmshohe. 

Franceschini Pietri's uncle, the former Prefet, called 
upon Monts at Cassel, giving his name as " Polloni." 
He had such a common appearance that Monts 
" thought him a sort of domestic. . . . M. Pietri 
was, however, an amiable man of the world, of perfect 
manners, intelligent, erudite, with whom it was a 



48 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

pleasure to converse. . . . The Emperor had evidently 
long been expecting to see him. Pietri often left and 
returned. Probably the Emperor had sent him on 
confidential missions."* 

* " La Captivity de Napoleon III. en AUemagne. " Par le 
General Comte C. de Monts. Paris : Pierre Lafitte et Cie. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

By an intimate surviving Friend, who lived with them 
for many years 

[Prefatory Note. — Soon after the death of the 
Prince Imperial in Zululand certain French writers of 
repute accused the Empress of having treated her 
son in so unmotherly a manner that, to escape from the 
restrictions imposed upon him at Chislehurst, he 
sought, and finally obtained, the permission of the 
Queen and the Duke of Cambridge (the Commander- 
in-Chief) to join our forces in Zululand, not as a 
combatant, but merely, in the written instructions 
of the Duke, " as a spectator." He was, however, 
allowed to wear our uniform. On the ist of June, 
1879, he accompanied a handful of our men on a 
reconnoitring expedition. The Zulus surprised the 
party, and the Prince was killed. Stories were 
published to the effect that the Empress had kept the 
Prince so short of money that, on one occasion, when 
he had entertained two or three friends at dinner at a 
West End hotel, he was unable to pay the bill, which 
was settled by the well-known Comte Fleury. 

The perfect harmony of the relations between 
the Empress and her son is here shown authoritatively 
for the first time. The statement is comprised in 
the mass of interesting " papers " of the late 
Monsignor Goddard, who was the Almoner of the 

D 49 



50 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Empress until she left Chislehurst for Farnborough 
Hill, and who was necessarily well acquainted with 
the writer of this historical fragment. All the Mon- 
signor's "papers" (documents) were placed in my 
hands by his family, the letters written to the priest by 
the Empress and the Prince Imperial included. — E. L.] 

What were the motives which brought about the 
grave and sudden decision of the Prince Imperial 
to take part in the war in Zululand — a decision which 
led to his heroic death at Ityoyosi? I will divide 
the reasons into three groups : (i) the Prince's char- 
acter, (2) his patriotism, and (3) the military and 
English circle in which he lived when, with the force 
of a thunderbolt, the news reached London of the 
defeat at Isandula and the horrible massacre which 
succeeded it — news which caused in England and 
in the army a display of emotion difficult to realise 
in France, but which, without exaggeration, may be 
compared with that, less the feeling of personal and 
immediate peril, caused in Paris by the glorious ^defeat 
of Reichshofen in 1870. 

I know of no other motives except these three; 
believe me when I say that no others exist. To seek 
for other causes — inaccurate, futile or romantic — for 
a decision so grave taken by the Prince Imperial, 
who was fully aware of his great responsibilities and 
duties, would be to disagree with those who study 
events with truth, without passion and with the resolve 
to sweep aside the torrent of imaginative stories 
which never fails to flow after an event so unexpected, 
so sad and so great. 

The Prince Imperial's decision to go to the Cape 
was brought about in the first place by his character. 



EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 51 

He was, in the fullest sense of the word, a Christian 
and French chevalier. A Napoleon, he loved glory, 
and from his earliest youth his taste led him to study 
military questions. The blood which he inherited 
from his mother, one of the ancient and illustrious 
ducal race of the Guzmans, gave him the love of 
chivalry and heroic enterprises. As a child, nothing 
gave him greater delight than military reviews and 
his visits to the camp at Chalons, where he was in the 
midst of our army. As a youth, he was in the thick of 
it in 1870, displaying his sang-froid and courage in 
the first engagement (that at Saarbriicken), not a 
very considerable one, but having a successful result. 
He was the deeply grieved witness of our first reverses, 
and his sorrows were increased by the defeats of our 
forces, his separation from his parents, and by exile. 

As a young man, he studied the art of war in the 
principal artillery school in England. He witnessed 
with passionate admiration, and with bitterness at 
his powerlessness to imitate them, the debuts of his 
greatest friends in the ranks of the British army. 
He loved and sought out danger for himself, but he 
would never have exposed others to it, nor would he 
ever have abandoned anyone. French, profoundly 
French, the Prince Imperial was deeply imbued with 
this truth — that the egotistical and sterile debates of 
parliaments have never saved nations. 

He felt that when the hour of supreme crisis arrived 
his energy would enable him to crush the revolutionary 
evil which, under the name of the Republic, leads 
France to the tomb. He desired to conquer by a 
glorious deed of arms the renown necessary for him 
to command, one day, those who would have resolved 
to save the country at the risk of their lives. The base 



52 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

calumnies of revolutionary pamphlets and newspapers 
did not leave him indifferent to their effect. He 
felt himself superior to their venom, but he wished to 
acquire the incontestable glory of some heroic action 
to enable him the better to confound them. 

England, in which he lived, had felt an immense 
emotion at the news of the first disasters at the Cape. 
Young officers, his companions at Woolwich, sailed 
gleefully for the campaign in Zululand, preparing 
themselves for it before his eyes. He listened to 
them as one in a dream. One day his ardent tem- 
perament forced him to imitate them. Unknown to 
all, not even telling the Empress until he had taken 
the decisive step, in order to spare her alarm and to 
avoid the obstacles which her tender anxiety for her 
son might have put in his way, he asked, as an honour, 
to be allowed to go to South Africa and share the 
fatigues and dangers of those who had been his 
companions at the Royal Military Academy. His 
persistence, his charm, the regrets that the first 
refusals of his request caused him, triumphed over 
all difficulties, and the departure of the Prince Imperial 
was decided upon. 

I have narrated the three motives which determined 
his departure for the Cape. There are no others 
which, in my opinion, deserve examination. I 
opposed his generous, but hazardous, resolution with 
all my power, but without the slightest appearance of 
success. 

You ask me to give you my sincere impression 
respecting the relations which existed between the 
Prince and the Empress, between the son and the 
mother. In all truth, on both sides they were char- 
acterised by the deefest affection; a deferential 




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EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 53 

tenderness on the fart of the Prince, a passionate 
tenderness on the fart of his mother. 

I lived with them for many years, and I never saw 
anything but the affectionate respect, manifested with 
the tact of a perfect gentleman, which was the 
Prince's distinctive characteristic. I never saw any- 
thing but the ardent and passionate affection shown 
by the Empress which adorned this triple character : 
that affection of the mother for her son, that unique 
love for her son of the woman who had lost everything 
else, the affection of the Sovereign for the last hope 
of her Dynasty. 

The Prince Imperial enjoyed in everything the 
fullest liberty; he never misused it, and nothing 
tarnished the admirable dignity of his life. None 
of the divergences or discussions which might arise 
between two equally ardent natures ever appeared 
to me to be serious : they never exceeded the limits 
of the disquieting and jealous tenderness of a mother 
who has nothing in the world but her son, and which 
sometimes led her involuntarily to forget that she 
had before her not a child, but a man — a mother who 
would remove from his path all dangers and all 
intrigues. On the other side was the impatient feeling 
of the young man who, conscious of his strength, 
regarded as useless the solicitude and the precautions 
accumulated by the mother's alarmed affection. 

I wish all mothers had a son as affectionate, as 
deferential, and as tender as was the Prince Imperial. 
I wish all sons could be watched over and loved 
by an affection as ardent and profound as was that 
of the Empress. I have seen her at the bedside of 
her son when he was ill, and seldom have I witnessed 
a more touching spectacle. No young man ever 



54 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

led a more reputable existence; none occasioned 
less chagrin to those who loved him; none better 
deserved regret and respect. 

A profound Catholic, a worthy godson of the 
immortal and saintly Pius IX., his last visit on English 
soil was to that little church at Chislehurst in which 
his father reposed, and to which I alone accompanied 
him when, on the 26th of February, 1879, an hour 
before his departure for the Cape, he repaired thither 
at dawn to receive his God. His filial affection led 
him also, while he yet stood upon English soil, to 
bestow his last look and his last embrace upon his 
mother, whose tears and grievous swoons seemed to 
prophesy the coming catastrophe. 

Often it is the proper character of great dramas to 
be devoid of mysteries and secrets and of all similitude 
of romance. Believe me, it is this character of simple 
grandeur and of noble and serene tranquillity which 
marked the resolves taken by the Prince Imperial. 
As to his life, it was as limpid and pure as water from 
the crystal rock, and it was with the fullest truth and 
justice that Cardinal Manning, when preaching his 
funeral sermon at Chislehurst on the day following 
the obsequies, was able to hold him up as an example 
to all Christians, as a model of virtue to all young 
people, and of heroism to all soldiers. In his last 
prayer he offered himself as a sacrifice to God for the 
welfare of all. He concluded one of the few political 
addresses which he made with the words : " May 
God watch over France and restore her prosperity 
and her greatness ! " 

It often happens that the most tender-hearted 
people display a complete lack of pity for others 
when they themselves are overwhelmed by their own 



EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 55 

sorrows. The Empress Eugenie is not one of these. 
She has always the same compassion for the unfortun- 
ate and grief-stricken. She who when on the throne 
was the personification of charity, the good angel 
of the humble, shows in exile that her benevolence 
was not a service practised for reasons of policy, 
but very real and abiding. Ever since, forty-five 
years ago, she found an asylum in England, all who 
have knocked at her door and appealed for help 
have been succoured. Often they have not even 
had to ask. One winter, a Frenchwoman, living 
at Chislehurst, was about to become a mother. She 
was very badly off, but her pride would not have 
allowed her to accept alms. Learning of the circum- 
stances, the Empress made, with her own hands, 
a complete layette, and sent it in such a manner that 
the poor creature was led to regard the gift as a little 
compliment from one woman to another. 

Another time the Empress considerably helped 
a family of Communistic refugees. Someone remon- 
strated with her for assisting " those wretches," but 
the Empress replied : " Neither the mother nor the 
child is responsible for the faults of the father." 

This pleasure, this necessity of giving, continued 
to be also the characteristic of the Emperor during 
his life at Chislehurst. When he strolled across 
the common he gave to all who asked, as he had done 
at Fontainebleau, at Compiegne, and at St Cloud. 

It passes comprehension that anyone capable of 
putting his ideas on paper should have endeavoured 
to seriously associate the death of the Prince Imperial 
with the machinations of foreign Freemasons ! To 
the Due d'Orleans the craft which was held in such 



56 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

high estimation by King Edward is, we know, 
" anathema maranatha," for the grandson of Louis 
Philippe has often denounced it in the bitterest terms 
in those encyclicals with which he revived the hopes 
of his followers from time to time until the outbreak 
of war in 19 14. And it was in a Royalist — that is to 
say an Orleanist — ^journal that I found this reference 
to the detested " crimes magonniques " and the Prince 
Imperial : 

" It is religion which is the constant object of their 
murderous attacks, because a people has never 
survived its religion, and it is by killing religion that 
the Brethren will have at their mercy the law and 
property, and will be able to establish upon their 
debris Masonic religion. Masonic law, and Masonic 
property. 

" Well, is this man (this Freemason) capable of 
assassination? Assuredly he is, and it would be 
madness to attempt to deny it. In the long series 
of crimes which form its history Freemasonry has 
always acted in one of the following manners vis-a-vis 
princes or powerful personages who trouble it. The 
man who had entered into engagements vis-a-vis 
such personages, and who failed to carry them out 
to the bitter end, was doomed. The man who, while 
submitting to the yoke of the sect, was thought capable 
of deserting it, had to perish. Example : Gambetta. 

" When a Prince was the sole representative of the 
future of his dynasty, and when he was known to have 
resolved to combat the secret societies, Masonic 
justice immediately decreed his death. It is this which 
happened to the Due de Berri, and, in our opinion, 
to the Prince Imperial. 



EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 57 

" A profound Catholic, the Prince Imperial knew 
a fond the dangers and the perfidious designs of 
Freemasonry and the secret sects. He had resolved 
to crush them and to rid France of this occult domina- 
tion — international, or rather sans patrie, and so 
dangerous. When he was only fifteen he had pro- 
mised one of his friends (Baron Tristan Lambert) 
he would never give to any of these sects the slightest 
acquiescence. The Prince Imperial was the only 
son of Napoleon III., and he personified the Imperial 
Monarchy, the Napoleonic legend. Has Freemasonry 
done for the Prince Imperial that which it did for the 
Due de Berri? This will be the subject of our 



mvestigation. 



CHAPTER VII 

M. FILON'S "LIFE" 

In the summer of 1912 M. Augustin Filon's "Life" 
of the Prince Imperial * was pubHshed, and my review 
of it in the " Pall Mall Gazette " of July 8 was the 
first to appear in this country. That criticism may 
well be reproduced here : 

Placing some of her son's letters in M. Filon's hands, 
the Empress said : " Je vous confie ce que j'ai de 
plus precieux au monde. Je ne vous donnerait qu'un 
conseil : gardez toute votre liberie d'ecrivain." 
M. Filon tells us he has done so, and that what he 
has written came from his memory and his con- 
science, and that he has endeavoured to set down the 
truth. I have no doubt whatsoever about his accur- 
acy; for, with some few exceptions, all that is 
contained in his sumptuous volume of two hundred 
and seventy-six pages, beautifully produced, and 
charmingly and lavishly illustrated, is familiar to me. 
The talented author has had the advantage of seeing 
the Prince Imperial's letters to his mother. Moreover, 
he was for many years the boy's tutor, and remained 
his devoted friend to the last. He was, therefore, 
the precise man for the task which he has fulfilled, to, 
I am sure, the complete satisfaction of the Imperial 
lady and her legion of friends in all countries. 

* "Le Prince Imperial: Souvenirs et Documents, 1856 — 1879." 
Ouvrage Illustr^. Par Augustin Filon. Paris : Hachette et 
Cie. Price 2of. 

58 



M. FILON'S "LIFE" 59 

It is doing only bare justice to M. Filon to acknow- 
ledge that he has traced the Prince's career with the 
utmost particularity. He begins of his own know- 
ledge from 1867, when he entered upon his duties, 
until 1879; and reliable persons have furnished him 
with the details of the period between 1856 until the 
year he became the youth's preceptor. Many writers, 
of course, have devoted themselves to narrating 
incidents of the Prince's life. Comte d'Herisson 
and M. Deleage have recorded the events in Zululand 
— the former in an unofficial, yet graphic, manner. 
But it is to M. Filon's book that we must turn for 
absolute facts — so far as he has been authorised to 
record them. There are disputed points to which, 
as might have been expected, he does not refer. 
They have been treated by the friends of " Napoleon 
IV." as " commerages." The Empress has herself 
publicly stigmatised them as " lies " ; and I gave 
them the first authoritative denial in the " Pall Mall 
Gazette " at the moment they were appearing in the 
newspapers here and abroad. 

All that M. Filon tells us about the Prince between 
the date of his birth (1856) and the outbreak of the 
war in 1870 will have greater interest for the French 
readers whom he primarily addresses than for the 
English public. The wanderings of the Emperor 
and his son between the end of July and September 
4, 1870, have been described by English writers — 
some, generally speaking, accurately; others less 
correctly- In M. Filon's volume all this part of 
their Odyssey is narrated with as much exactitude 
as possible. The pluck under fire at Saarbriicken 
(August 2) of this child of fourteen years and four 
months was amazing. As one who assisted at the 



6o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

" baptism of fire " I can testify the same. As the 
Emperor and his son were about to start for the front, 
says M. Filon, a small black portmanteau, similar 
to that with which every sous-lieutenant was provided, 
was taken into the Prince's room. " Voila ma 
cantine," he said to Filon; " all my things must be 
got into it." The Empress saw them off to Metz — 
saw " the pale and pensive face of her husband and 
the enthusiastic and gay countenance of her son." 
Concealing her face with her hands, the wife and 
mother wept as the train disappeared. In a postscript 
to a letter written to M. Filon by the Prince immediately 
after the hot fight (for such it was) at Saarbriicken, 
he said, " All the bands played the ' Marseillaise ' ; 
it was splendid. The Prussians heard it, but it could 
not have comforted them." 

Three or four days before the crowning disaster 
(September i), the Prince was sent by his father with 
his suite into Sedan, where, even on August 28, the 
people were panic-stricken. When the Prince was 
told that he would have to leave the town and go to 
Avesnes, he flatly refused. " The Prussians are 
coming? Well, we will defend ourselves ! " Finally 
he was induced to leave, and was taken to Avesnes. 
While the battle was in progress the Emperor's little 
son went for a drive — the last he ever took in his native 
country. 

Those who have studied the campaign of 1870 will 
remember that, after the defeats in August, the Emperor 
wished to return to Paris with a sufficient force to 
protect the capital. MacMahon agreed with him. 
The Empress strongly objected, for (M. Filon tells 
us) she considered her husband and her son would 
be safest in the midst of the army, " no matter what 




The Emprp:ss Imlixii^ i\ iii.i: ••|ir( ' ( \i:i:i\i,i. Till-: I'kinxe 
Imperial on his pony, "Boi'ihn i/Ok."" I'kime Murat in 

UMKOKM 



-•^'^-! ---i 



nr 






1 Ml; 




['HV. 1%MI'KKi)K XaI'OLICoN III AM) IIIK 1'KIN( I', 

Imi'Ekiai. in the "Due" carriage 



M. FILON'S "LIFE" 6i 

t 

might happen." General de Falikao, Minister for 

War, was also opposed to the return to the capital of 

the Emperor; and the Emperor was compelled (the 

word is not too strong, as M. Emile Ollivier has often 

declared) to remain with his vanquished and dispirited 

legions, with the result that he personally surrendered 

to King William, who was the more surprised, as he, 

Moltke and Bismarck did not even know that the 

Emperor was in the town of Sedan while fighting was 

still going on ! As to the Empress, we are told by 

M. Filon that she remained at her post in Paris (I may 

add until, and three days after, the battle of Sedan) 

because she considered the capital the most dangerous 

place she could be in. No one doubts her courage; 

and perhaps she did right in declaring that the Emperor 

should not — must not — return to Paris at a critical 

juncture. 

Although M. Filon's book has made a tardy 
appearance, it is none the less to be treasured as the 
only authorised Life of the gallant Prince Imperial, 
of whom our late King said : 

" The premature death of this young man has caused 
pain and sympathy in our country from the highest to 
the lowest. A more charming young man, and one 
having more promise, has never existed." 

The curious thing is that we should have had to wait 
thirty-three years for this official Life of the son of 
Napoleon IIL and the Empress Eugenie. The 
Prince, revolver in one hand and sword in the other, 
fell, facing his Zulu foes, on June i, 1879. Less than 
three months before his death he had celebrated 
his twenty-third birthday. There cannot fail to be 
much speculation as to the non-appearance of this 
imposing volume until the present month. Has 



62 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

its publication any particular significance at this 
moment? There were, doubtless, good reasons why 
it was not issued years ago ; and it is probably only 
a coincidence that it appears at a time when, judging 
by what one hears and reads, the Bonapartist cause is 
more to the fore than it has been since the Emperor's 
death in January, 1873. 

At the end of the " Life " M. Filon makes this 
explanation, which some will probably accept under 
reserve. He says he did not wish to make it a vehicle 
for the revival of polemics which have died out; still 
less did he desire to make the dead Prince the 
posthumous advocate of a cause of which he cannot 
be the champion. " The Party to which I have had 
the honour to belong is not accustomed to transform 
a funeral ceremony into an emeute; and the noble 
Prince who is now the head of the Bonaparte family 
would be the first to blame me if I attempted to make 
a political manoeuvre out of the pious homage which 
I have rendered to his cousin." 

All who took part in the Prince Imperial's educa- 
tion and bringing-up are particularised — all but one : 
Monsignor Goddard ! ^ 

* An English edition of M. Filon's book has been issued by 
Mr W. Heinemann. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 

The " papers " left by Monsignor Goddard, of Chisle- 
hurst, the Empress Eugenie's "director," include 
a number of letters of Cardinal Bonaparte, a cousin 
of the Emperor Napoleon II L Lucien Louis Joseph 
Napoleon was born at Rome in 1828, ordained priest 
in 1853 (the year of his Emperor-cousin's marriage 
with Mile Eugenie de Montijo), elevated to the 
cardinalate in 1868, and died at Rome in 1895, 
aged sixty-seven. He was the second son of Charles 
Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, and 
grandson of Lucien (also Prince of Canino), the 
second brother of Napoleon I. The Cardinal's mother 
was a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, and he was a 
nephew of that eminent philologist. Prince Louis 
Lucien Bonaparte, who resided for many years at 
Bayswater, and is remembered for his striking 
resemblance to the Great Emperor. One of the 
sisters of his Eminence married Comte Primoli, 
another became Princess Gabrielli, and a third married 
the Comte de Cambaceres. Until the overthrow of the 
Second Empire, in September, 1870, the Cardinal 
was regarded by many as a possible successor of 
Pope Pius IX. With Napoleon III., the Empress 
Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial, as the letters prove, 
his Eminence maintained the most cordial relations. 
The letters show that an English priest who seeks 
Vatican honours must have powerful supporters, and 
6-. 



64 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

that Pius IX. was immeasurably gratified at the 
Chislehurst mission priest's success in obtaining the 
" abjurations " of many Protestants. " In his love 
for souls," the venerable Pontiff " was very happy 
at the spiritual victory " gained by Father Goddard, 
two of whose letters may serve as an introduction to 
the Cardinal's. 



Camden Place, Chislehurst, 
January g, 1873. 
MONSEIGNEUR, 

You have learnt the sad news of the death of 
the Emperor. I entreat you to go immediately to 
his Holiness our Lord the Pope and ask for his 
benediction, and tell him how convinced I am of the 
Emperor's good frame of mind. Also that I only 
awaited the moment to speak to him of his duties to 
the Holy See, and that I am fully convinced he would 
have listened to me with the greatest respect. 

Since I have had the honour of knowing the 
Emperor, I have been very much touched by his faith 
and his goodness. 

I beg you to mention all this, and more, to his 
Holiness, and request him to send his benediction, so 
that we may be enabled to render all suitable honours 
to the august dead. 

I write in the greatest haste, Monseigneur, begging 
you to accept all my apologies and the assurance of my 
deepest homage. 

I. Goddard, 
Priest. 

I beg you to send me an immediate reply by 
telegram. 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 65 

Chislehurst, January, 1873. 

Eminence, — 

In compliance with the desire of her Majesty 
the Empress, and in answer to the pious solicitude 
expressed in your letter of condolence, allow me, 
as cure of the parish, to tell you what I know of the 
dispositions and the religious feelings of our august 
dead. 

Several times before his death the Emperor ful- 
filled the duties of a good and fervent Catholic 
in receiving the Holy Communion in my church. 
His faith and his piety were to me the subject of pro- 
found and perfect edification. On several occasions 
I had the honour of conversations with his Majesty on 
the religious questions of the day, and I can certify 
that his sentiments were full of devotion for the 
church and for the great interests of religion. 

Alas ! when least expected, came the last terrible 
trial. I was summoned in all haste, without being 
able to render to the dying any other service but that 
of giving him absolution. 

I hope the information which I have the honour to 
send will be of a nature to satisfy your Eminence's 
benevolent hopes. 

Pray accept the homage of respect with which I have 
the honour to be, Monsignor, yours, etc., 

I. GODDARD. 



66 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

The CardinaVs " beloved Cousin, the Prince 
Imperial.'' 

Rome, July 29, 1873. 
Monsieur l'Abbe, — 

I thank you for your letter and for the inter- 
esting details that you have given me about my 
beloved cousin, the Prince Imperial. 

I am ill, and unable to go to the Vatican. I have, 
however, written, and yesterday evening our Holy 
Father was good enough to inquire after me, and to 
inform me that he accorded you his holy Apostolic 
benediction. I hasten to make this known to you, 
Monsieur I'Abbe, knowing how happy it will make you. 

I have not failed to execute your commission 
concerning my aunt, a religious of the Sacre Coeur, 
whose brother, my uncle [Prince], Louis Lucien, 
is in London. I believe you know him; and I shall 
be grateful to you if you will tell him of my profound 
attachment when you see him. 

Accept, Monsieur TAbbe, all my best sentiments 
of esteem and of very high consideration, and be good 
enough not to forget me in your fervent prayers, as 
I will remember you at the holy altar, where every 
morning I offer the holy sacrifice for the repose of the 
soul of the beloved and ever-to-be-regretted Emperor. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

" The Angelic Heir of Napoleon III.'' 

Rome, August 15, 1874. 
Monsieur l'Abb6, — 

I hasten to tell you that I received your letter, 
and that I have already written to the Holy Father 
(for the state of my health prevents me from going 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 67 

to the Vatican), forwarding to his Holiness your 
letter. 

I am very happy to hear all that you tell me — all 
that is so edifying — about the Prince Imperial, my 
beloved cousin. I should much like to be able to 
assist with him at your Mass, Monsieur TAbbe. 
For several months I have said mine seated, the 
Sovereign Pontiff, in his paternal goodness, having 
accorded me permission to do so. 

The Holy Sacrifice has been offered on the occasion 
of this beautiful fete (the Festival of the Assumption), 
at the altar where the Saint Pere celebrates the holy 
mysteries, for the soul of the Emperor, and I asked 
him to pray for the happiness of the Prince Imperial, 
who is the consolation of his august mother and the 
hope of France and of Catholicism. 

My good aunt at the Sacre Coeur continues to 
suffer. We often speak of you and of the dear Prince 
Imperial, and with all our hearts we hope you will 
receive the Divine blessing for your true attachment 
to the angelic heir of Napoleon III. 

Accept, Monsieur I'Abbe, my sentiments of high 
consideration, and do not forget me in your fervent 
prayers. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

The ungranted " Dispensation.^' 

Rome, November 2^, 1874. 

Monsieur l'Abbe, — 

After reading your letter I hastened to send it 
by my secretary to Monseigneur Bartolini, Secretary 
of the Holy Congregation of Rites. Monseigneur 
Bartolini made a long search of the In'dex, which is 
in his custody, and found that the dispensation which 



68 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

you wish for has never been granted. He told 
the Canon that he much regretted being unable to 
satisfy you or me, and he added, in proof of his good 
will, that the ceremony might be postponed to the 
Octave. 

I hasten to tell you, Monsieur I'Abbe, how dear to 
me is the consoling news which you have given me : 
and to renew the expression of my most distinguished 
sentiments of esteem and high consideration, begging 
you not to forget me at the altar of the Divine Master. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

" The Pope will nominate you Prelate^ 

Rome, April 4, 1875. 

Monsieur l'Abb^, — 

I have again spoken to the Holy Father about 
your matter. It was on the jeudi saint that his Holi- 
ness was good enough to give me an audience; and 
I have delayed writing to you until to-day in the hope 
that the Majordomo would send me a letter, the 
Sovereign Pontiff having expressed his intention to 
nominate you Prelate, as I was nominated three years 
ago ; after which his Holiness sent me a letter from 
the Cardinal Secretary of State, appointing me a 
Prelate of his Household, and about a year later his 
Holiness sent me the Brief conferring upon me the 
dignity of Protonotary, with which I had been 
invested ten years previously, when the Sovereign 
Pontiff deigned to create me a Cardinal. I have 
not yet sent to the Majordomo, because I was told 
that, it being the Easter vacation, it was not surprising 
that the letter had not been forwarded to me. . . . 
[The Cardinal refers to a domestic calamity which 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 69 

he had sustained, but this portion of his letter is 
undecipherable. His Eminence concludes:] The 
dear Prince and her Majesty (the Empress Eugenie) 
have been, as always, perfect in these circumstances. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

The Prince Imferial and the French Throne. 

Rome, February i8, 1877. 

Monsieur l'Abbe:, — 

As soon as I could get a moment to myself I 
wrote to the Prince (Imperial). He replied in terms 
of affection towards you as well as to myself. I 
immediately read it to the Holy Father, who told me 
that he would give the necessary orders. I read also 
to his Holiness the letter from your Bishop, and as 
soon as I receive the letter nominating you a Prelate 
I will forward it to you. . . . 

I believe the young Prince will do immense good if 
God permits him to occupy the throne of that beloved 
France which his great and unfortunate father so 
much loved and made so great and prosperous. The 
Prince and the Empress have been, I know, very 
sensible of this new proof of your sympathy. 

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers. Monsieur 
I'Abbe, and accept all my best sentiments of esteem 
in N.S.J-C. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

" The essential thing " at the Vatican. 

Rome, April 13, 1877. 

MONSEIGNEUR, 

I have at this instant received your two letters 
of the 9th, and I hasten to tell you that I have 
[written to] H. I. H. [to say] that the Holy Father 



70 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

had forwarded me your letter of nomination. Besides, 
her Majesty [the Empress] told me that I might 
send it to his Imperial Highness [the Prince Imperial], 
who would hand it to you. Believe me that there 
was no other means of carrying the matter out for 
the moment. Unintentionally, it was a badly 
managed affair. 

Now, be good enough to send me, for the Holy 
Father, a letter, tendering him your best thanks for 
this mark of his paternal benevolence. That is 
the essential thing. In the next place, I think you 
might ask your v-enerable Bishop to write to his 
Holiness, telling him . . . that which I myself 
ignored; and I am convinced that, before long, you 
will receive what your worthy Bishop desires. He 
knows thoroughly well how devoted you have been. 
[Many words are illegible, and the letter is unsigneH.] 

The Pope " will be satisfied^ 

Rome, April 30, 1877. 

MONSEIGNEUR, 

I have returned from a visit to the Holy 
Father, to whom I delivered your letter of compli- 
ments, as well as a letter from the dear Prince Imperial. 
His Holiness, as always, displayed a quite paternal 
goodness. He blessed you, Monseigneur, from the 
depths of his heart, and was much touched by the 
sentiments which you asked me to express. By the 
same post I am writing to S.A.I, [the Prince Imperial], 
who is so beloveH by his august godfather [Pope 
Pius IX.]. 

T shall be happy, Monseigneur, to again see your 
venerable Bishop, and to place myself at his 'disposal. 
His Lordship will certainly not fail to tell his Holi- 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 71 

ness all that you have done, Monseigneur, for the 
welfare of souls, and the Sovereign Pontiff will be very 
satisfied. 

Accept, Monseigneur, my most distinguished senti- 
ments in N.S.J.C., and be good enough not to forget 
me in your fervent prayers. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

" Preparing the way " for Vatican honours. 

Rome, August 5, 1877, 

Monseigneur, — 

I have received your letter of the ist, and 
hasten to tell you what I have already told, in heart- 
felt sincerity, Monseigneur, your venerable Bishop — 
i.e. that I have asked the Holy Father to accord you 
an ecclesiastical dignity, without speaking of a 
Prelacy or a . . . [undecipherable]. 

We spoke a long time about you, Monseigneur, 
to your worthy Prelate, and I permit myself to say that 
he referred in terms of hearty eulogy of you to his 
Holiness, and in a manner to prepare the way for 
obtaining what you desire. I have not seen Monseign- 
eur since his audience of the Holy Father. We 
called upon each other without, unfortunately, 
meeting. I permitted myself to tell the Bishop that, 
if he considered it well to do so, he might, after a 
certain interval, send me a letter for the Holy Father, 
asking him to appoint you a Prelate of the Mantelletta ; 
or, if the Bishop preferred it, he might write me a 
letter asking me to make the request to the Holy 
Father. 

I am happy to hear the good news which you send 
me of the dear Prince Imperial. I have sent him by 



72 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Monseigneur your Bishop the medal which the 
Cardinals have offered to his Holiness for his episcopal 
jubilee. 

I am very pleased to hear that her Majesty the 
Empress has happily returned from the long journey 
which her filial piety led her to undertake. * I have 
sent her the medal which the Holy Father forwarded 
to me for the Prince. 

Accept, Monseigneur, all my most distinguished 
sentiments in N.S- 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

The Chislehurst Priest must be patient. 

Rome, December 2, 1877. 

Monseigneur, — 

I thank you for having sent to his Imperial 
Highness the medal, and I am happy to hear what you 
tell me about his precious health and that of her 
Majesty the Empress. 

I have just returned from an audience of the Holy 
Father, and I am pleased to be able to tell you that 
his Holiness accords you his Apostolic benediction. 
He spoke to me about the dear Prince with the 
greatest paternal affection. 

I have well considered your affair, Monseigneur, 
and I believe your Bishop should write to the high 
personage of whom you speak. The letter which 
the Bishop wrote to me I have forwarded to the Holy 
Father, who has remitted it to the Majordomo. 
Consequently I shall not have it again, as it will have 
to be placed in the archives of the Majordomo. 

You will understand, Monseigneur, that, as only 

* The Empress had gone to Madrid to see her mother, the 
Comtesse de Montijo, who died two years later, aged eighty-four, 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS ']Z 

five months have elapsed since his Holiness made 
you his Private Chaplain, I cannot afresh immediately 
ask him to accord you a new Prelacy. That is 
easier said [than done]. The illustrious personne 
of whom you speak in your letter is not at Rome at 
the moment. 

The [Pope] will not accord you more than you 
think until after a certain time. Time is a necessary 
element. 

Pray for me, and believe all my distinguished 
sentiments in N.S.J.C. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

The Pofe blesses M gr. Goddard for more 
" Abjurations.^'' 

Rome, December 24, 1877. 
MONSEIGNEUR, 

I have just returned from the Vatican [where 
I saw], seventeen Cardinals round the sick bed of 
our Holy Father. I asked them to request him to 
give you his holy benediction, and to tell him of the 
sweet and precious consolation you felt at receiving 
the abjurations of six Protestants. His Holiness 
blessed you from the bottom of his heart, and, in his 
love for souls, was very happy at the spiritual victory 
which you have obtained. I am greatly afflicted, 
Monseigneur, at your sorrow, and beg you to accept 
my very sincere condolences. The death of a father 
is such a great calamity ! May the good God give you 
courage and holy resignation ! 

I have written to her Majesty [the Empress] and 
to the dear Prince Imperial, to offer them my wishes 
for a happy fete and a happy new year, and have sent 
them the blessing of the Holy Father, 



74 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

You will do well to avail yourself of the amiable 

intervention of the great personage you mention. . . . 

Accept, Monseigneur, all my sentiments, and pray 

for me. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

The Empresses example to " the fervent Catholics of 
England!^ Further " abjurations:" 

Rome, January 5, 1879. 
MONSEIGNEUR, — 

I thank you for your letter and for the wishes 
that you express on the occasion of the New Year, 
and beg you at the same time to accept my own sincere 
wishes for the accomplishment of all that you can 
desire. 

I am happy to be able to announce the Apostolic 
benediction of our Holy Father, which you desired, 
Monseigneur, and to tell you that the last time I had 
the joy of seeing his Holiness he spoke of you, and 
wished me to recommend to you more and more our 
beloved Prince Imperial. Very shortly I shall take 
him your letter, which will give him pleasure; for 
at this Christmastide the Sovereign Pontiff is so over- 
whelmed by his occupations that I thought it better 
to wait before taking it. He will be well pleased 
to see how edifying is the example of the dear Prince 
and the good Empress to the fervent Catholics 
of England; and will feel, like ourselves, happy 
at the abjurations of several Protestants which you, 
Monseigneur, have received. 

Accept anew, Monseigneur, all my most distin- 
guished wishes, and be good enough not to forget me 
in your fervent prayers. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 



CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 75 

The Prince ImferiaV s last Communion at Chislehurst^ 

Rome. 

MONSEIGNEUR, 

Without delay I thank you for your good 
letter, which has been to me a very great consolation. 
I hastened to place it under the eyes of the Very Holy 
Father, who perused it with great interest, and to 
whom it was very satisfactory. 

I am happy, Monseigneur, to be able to send you 
the Apostolic benediction, which, in your letter, you 
expressed a wish to receive. This holy benediction 
of the venerated Sovereign Pontiff will bring happiness 
to you and also to her Majesty [the Empress Eugenie] 
and the dear Prince Imperial. It is a touching 
consolation to think that his Highness received the 
Holy Communion on the very day of his departure 
from Chislehurst for Zululand. I pray several times 
during the day for that noble heart. Poor Empress ! 
How much she must suffer from this sad separation ! 
Her admirable courage and her fervent piety will give 
her the necessary strength. 

I have seen the good Archbishop of Avignon and 
the excellent Mgr. Mermillod, who have spoken to me 
of the dear Prince Imperial with great sympathy. 

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers, 
Monseigneur; and when you see her Majesty [the 
Empress] be good enough to present my respects to 
her. I wrote to her a few days ago. 

Accept, Monseigneur, all my most sincere thanks. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

* This letter is undated. The contents show that it was 
written immediately after the Prince Imperial's departure for 
Zululand on February 2^]^ 1879. 



76 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

The Pope's pleasure at the " great progress " of 
Catholicism in England. 

Rome, March 2, 1879. 
MONSEIGNEUR, 

Your heart will readily understand that I 
address myself to your well-known attachment to the 
Prince Imperial, my beloved cousin, to ask you [to 
invoke the Divine protection for] the expedition 
which an admirable courage has led him to take part in. 

[The Cardinal expresses his gratitude at hearing 
that " our holy religion is making such progress 
in England," and acknowledges Mgr. Goddard's help 
in that direction]. . . . The Holy Father, whom I 
went to see yesterday, to talk about the dear Prince, 
is gratified with these results. His Holiness spoke 
about you very kindly, and is full of paternal 
solicitude for his Imperial Highness; I wrote to 
him last night, to her Majesty the Empress. 

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers. Pray for 
the Prince and her Majesty. 

Accept, Monseigneur, all my sentiments of esteem. 

L. Card. Bonaparte. 

It was said in Paris that the Emperor had died 
without having received the Sacraments of the Church. 
This was denied by, among others, M. Francis Aubert, 
who had chronicled the funeral ceremonies for one 
of the leading French papers, and who declared that 
Father Goddard administered the last Sacraments. 
" This," said M. Aubert, was " the truth." M. Aubert, 
however, was not correctly informed. The proof 
of this is the letter written by the Chislehurst priest 
to Cardinal Bonaparte, 



CHAPTER IX 

EMPEROR, EMPRESS AND LAST PREMIER 

Emile Olliviers Expiation and Exculpation 

" My narrative is of granite, because it is the truth."* 

That a man who survived to celebrate his eighty- 
eighth birthday should have devoted a score of his last 
years to writing an apology for his conduct of a 
Ministry which lasted only just over six months is in 
its way phenomenal, and stamps him as one endowed 
with an almost abnormal strength of will. Those 
who, for various reasons, shrank from the attempt 
even to glance at the many volumes of " L' Empire 
Liberal " attributed Ollivier's determination to " clear 
himself " to overweening vanity. Those who have read 
only what they may regard as the salient portions of 
this recital of a great crisis in the life of an empire take 
a different view of this stupendous work. Thiers, 
after seeing an example of De Blowitz's first contribu- 
tion to the " Times," said, " You want a roomy paper 
to write in " ; and when Laurence Oliphant spread out 
on the carpet what was then known on the Continent 
as " the journal of the City," Delane's new recruit 
gazed upon it with admiration for its Brobdingnagian 
dimensions. So it was with Ollivier, to whom a 
canvas which satisfied Meissonier would have been 
as useless as an envelope. To narrate one incident 

* " L'Empire Liberal," vol. xvi. 
77 



78 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

only (but it was a tremendous one) he occupies a volume 
of 640 pages ! In it there are only two or three 
repetitions, and those are necessary to make the epic 
intelligible — dijfferent versions of the same circum- 
stances. That volume (xv.) is " La Guerre." " Le 
Suicide " (xvi.) was issued in 19 12, and three years 
later (August, 19 15) came the volume (xvii.) concluding 
the series, appropriately entitled " La Fin." It is incom- 
plete, for while the veteran was writing the chapters 
on Sedan and the Revolution of three days later 
" God's glory smote him on the face," and we shall 
never know from Ollivier's own pen the impression 
made upon him by those events. It can, however, 
now be surmised by his vivid portrayal of MacMahon's 
engulfment " dans la route de perdition." " La Fin," 
which has fire and fury stamped on many of its pages, 
is of special value for the absolute proof it affords 
of the striking fact that there should, never have 
been a Sedan, with its resultant overthrow of the 
Second Empire. The tragedy was caused by the 
obstinate determination of the Regent and her obtuse 
and evil counsellors. Generals Palikao and Trochu, 
that on no account should the Emperor or MacMahon, 
with his army, be allowed to return to Paris, but 
should embark, in the third week of August, on the 
mad course of marching to the aid of Bazaine in 
Metz. Even Thiers, and many other dispassionate 
observers, denounced that step as " insane." No 
great harm would have resulted from Bazaine being 
left unrelieved in the fortress. On the other hand, the 
Empire would have been saved had MacMahon, 
accompanied by the Emperor, led his force to Paris, 
which could then have successfully withstood the 
enemy's siege and compelled the Germans to make 




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C^ O 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 79 

peace upon terms acceptable to France. But, as 
Ollivier says in his final volume, " The Regent had 
supplanted the Emperor since the 9th of August " — 
only a week after the first clash of arms at Saarbriicken, 
on the 2nd of the month. The reins of power were, 
most unfortunately as it proved, in the hands of the 
Empress, the victim not only of Palikao, but of 
Trochu, who, in the opinion of the public, had " taken 
the place of the Empress" ! Thus were the Emperor, 
the generals and the armies handicapped from the 
outset : thus was the final issue inevitable. 

In a forceful passage Ollivier now shows us how 
" the war was disavowed by those who had demanded 
it and voted for it : the only Ministry which could 
have directed affairs was turned out of ofiice; the 
Emperor suspended from his functions as military 
and political chief; everything left in the hands 
of weak or inexperienced Ministers; the cry of 
* sauve-qui-peut ' heard in the Chamber and outside ; 
Thiers, Gambetta and Jules Favre became the orators 
and directors of a crazy majority; the revolutionaries 
distributed arms to their adepts and watched for the 
first defeat in order to destroy what remained of the 
[old] institutions; and Trochu used his power against 
that of the Empress." 

These words were written with the life's blood 
of the old patriot who passed away under the shadow 
of Mont Blanc only a year before the second invasion 
of his country. What happiness would have been 
his had he been spared to witness the regeneration of 
France and the triumphs of her armies and of seeing 
Gaul and Briton, side by side, stemming the Teutonic 
current ! 

Two men in particular have had to bear the blame 



8o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

for the unsuccessful war of 1870 — Napoleon III. and 
Emile Ollivier, and both were averse to entering 
upon it. The real culprit was the Due de Gramont, 
the Foreign Minister of Ollivier's Cabinet, although, 
later, Palikao and Trochu materially contributed to 
the downfall. Bismarck said of Gramont : " He 
is the stupidest man I have ever met." He was the 
man who delivered France into the hands of Prussia. 
Acting on his own initiative, without informing anyone 
of his intentions, he instructed Benedetti, the diplo- 
matic representative of France at Berlin, to endeavour 
to extort from King William a promise that he 
would not in future support the candidature of any 
Hohenzollern prince for the Spanish throne. It is 
said, and with justice, that Ollivier ought not to have 
allowed Gramont to take such a step before consulting 
his colleagues. But the mischief was done, as the 
facts prove, behind the backs of the Cabinet. All 
the devices employed by Ollivier to mitigate the 
blunder failed. New instructions were sent to 
Benedetti — Ollivier and the other Ministers concurring 
— but in all the dispatches Benedetti was urged to 
press the King to say something which would save the 
faces of the members of Ollivier's Cabinet. The 
King had already assured Benedetti that the candida- 
ture of Prince Leopold had been withdrawn, and, 
to paraphrase his Majesty's words, there was an end 
of the matter. And there, of course, it ought to 
have ended. King William rightly declined to give 
any " promise " as to the future, and, but very mildly, 
resented Benedetti's importunities for another 
audience. Bismarck telegraphed his intention of 
resigning if the Kng consented to accord the French 
Ambassador another interview. As he received no 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 8i 

reply to this threat, he telegraphed again to the same 
effect. 

" The consequences," writes Ollivier very frankly, 
" of the importunity, si peu sagace, of our Ambassador 
were immediate. The King, fatigued by his obses- 
sions, after [his Majesty's] absolute refusals, appealed 
to Bismarck." By the King's order, Abeken, an 
official employee, in consultation with Eulenberg 
and Camphausen, sent a cypher telegram of two 
hundred words to Bismarck, detailing precisely what 
had occurred at Ems, and concluding : " His Majesty 
leaves your Excellency to decide whether the new 
request made by Count Benedetti and the refusal which 
has been given him should be immediately communi- 
cated to our Ministers, to those abroad, and to the 
Press." Bismarck, given a free hand by his 
Sovereign, certainly " edited " the King's telegram 
to an appreciable extent, but he did not " falsify " it, 
as he was alleged to have done. And even Ollivier, 
when he speaks of " falsification," is careful, with his 
wonted honesty, to explain that he does not employ 
the word as meaning an actual falsifying of the 
document. Others, less conscientious, less acquainted 
perhaps with the science of language, have boldly 
accused, and still accuse, Bismarck of " forging " 
the King's message ! 

The Due de Gramont, then, had ordered Benedetti 
to ask King William for " guarantees " as to the 
future, a fact unknown, as indicated above, to 
Ollivier, who saw the telegram only four hours after 
it had been dispatched (July 12). At eleven p.m. 
Gramont showed the telegram to Ollivier, who was 
reading it when an aide-de-camp brought in a letter 
from the Emperor at St Cloud. Gramont read it and 



82 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

handed it to Ollivier. In it the Emperor said Bene- 
detti should now be instructed to lay before the King 
these points : 

1. We have been dealing with Prussia, not with Spain. 

2, The dispatch sent by Prince Antoine of Hohenzollern 
[father of the candidate] to Prim is not for us an official docu- 
ment, nor was anyone instructed to deliver it to us. 

3. Prince Leopold accepted the candidature for the Spanish 
throne, and his father renounced it [for him]. 

4. Benedetti must, then, insist, as he has been ordered to do 
[by Gramont], upon having [from King William] a cate- 
gorical answer by which the King will promise for the future 
not to allow Prince Leopold to follow his brother's example 
and leave for Spain one fine day. * 

5. As long as we have no official communication from Ems 
we have not had an answer to our just demands. 

6. Until we get that answer we shall continue our armaments. 

7. It is impossible to make any communication to the Chamber 
until we are better informed. 

The Emperor's letter made matters worse than they 
already were. IMoreover, his IMajesty had not, as 
courtesy demanded, consulted his Prime Minister before 
writing to Gramont. The Emperor had written his 
letter under the influence of two members of the Right, 
Jerome David and the journalist Cassagnac, both 
firebrands, crazy for war, and exciting the Empress, 
who did not require much stimulating in this direction. 
Ollivier felt that he had been badly treated by not 
having been confided in by his Foreign Minister or 
by the Emperor. He says : " II y avait de quoi 
justifier une explosion de rudes paroles." But he 
kept his temper. " At the moment," he asks plain- 
tively, " what was I to do ? I had not the power 
[which he ought to have had as head of the Govern- 

* The brother referred to was the late King of Roumania. 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 83 

ment] to tell Gramont to recall his first telegram to 
Benedetti [the one which was the original cause of the 
war], nor to prevent him from carrying out the order 
which he had just receivejfl [from the Emperor]. At 
the utmost I could only have asked him to accompany 
me to the Emperor in order to get his Majesty to with- 
draw his instructions. Had it been in the daytime 
I should have done this; but at midnight I could 
not think of doing so. . . . The deed was irrevocably 
done. I had to take one of two courses — to protest 
by resigning, or to seek to annul the consequences 
of an act which I was unable to prevent." 

In a letter complaining of an article which had 
appeared in the " Historische Zeitschrif t," asserting that 
he had misrepresented the Ems incident, Ollivier 
wrote : "I am made to say that I have striven 
to demonstrate that the lettre d'excuses was inoffensive. 
On the contrary, I have shown in my volume xiv. 
that to ask [the King] for a lettre d'excuses would 
have been an impertinence to which the King would 
have replied by sending our Ambassador across the 
frontier and by ordering the mobilisation of the army. 
... It was a spontaneous letter of friendship, not 
a lettre d'excuses, which we asked for. Neither 
Gramont nor I was such an imbecile as not to have 
known that to have asked for a lettre d'excuses would 
have been to put the match to the powder." But, 
despite all Ollivier's ingenious pleading, Gramont's 
letter did provoke Bismarck's soufflet, which probably 
brought to the Duke's recollection the proverb, 
" Cracher en I'air pour que cela vous retombe dans 
la bouche." 

Ollivier told Gramont that he would be accused of 
having premeditated the war, and advised him not to 



84 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

obey the Emperor's suggestion to stiffen the first 
dispatch to Benedetti, but to attenuate it. The 
Premier then drafted his idea of the new instructions 
which Gramont should send to Benedetti. The 
difference between Ollivier's draft and Gramont's first 
telegram was, he says, considerable. The first tele- 
gram instructed Benedetti to obtain from the King 
" a general guarantee in view of future eventualities. 
My draft limited the guarantee to the present, and was 
only applicable in case Prince Leopold did not 
concur in the actual renunciation of his candidature 
made by his father." Gramont thought Ollivier's 
advice good, but he adopted only half of it; and this 
second telegram, dispatched at eleven forty-five p.m., 
did not reach Benedetti until ten-thirty the next morn- 
ing, after he had seen the King and had presented his 
first, and fatal, instructions. 

Thousands of books, pamphlets and magazine and 
newspaper articles have been written to explain the 
actual cause of the war which destroyed the Bonapart- 
ist dynasty and made the German Empire. * But 
the bare facts are outlined in the foregoing few lines. 

" Make it known," wrote the Emperor to Ollivier 
from his ** prison" at Wilhelmshohe f "that it is 
Thiers and Jules Favre who, since 1866, have so often 
repeated that France was so weakened by the success 
of Prussia as to make une revanche necessary, so that 
the first incident [that at Ems] sufficed to cause 

* There were previous contributory causes, extending over 
several years. 

t The Emperor's captivity lasted from the first days of 
September, 1870, until the third week of March, 1871, when he 
took up his residence with the Empress and the Prince Imperial 
at Chislehurst, where he died somewhat unexpectedly on January 
9. 1873. 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 85 

an explosion of public opinion. They have heaped 
up the incendiary material, and a single spark was 
sufficient to cause a fire." 

It will have been seen that, at the critical moment, 
the Emperor, like Gramont, did not give that full 
confidence to Ollivier which the President of the 
Council had a right to expect, even to 'demand. Faced 
by a reticent Emperor on one han'd and a secretive 
Foreign Minister on the other, an infinitely stronger 
man than Ollivier would have been baffled. Nor, if we 
accept his oft-repeateB assertions, did the President 
of the Council receive much, if any, support from the 
Empress. " Undoubtedly," he says, referring to 
the period preceding the declaration of war, " the 
Empress and her camarilla were for war, but the 
Emperor was still undecided," and this after he had 
suggested to Gramont to " accentuate " his second 
telegram to Benedetti. Not only did the Empress, at 
luncheon one day during the " negotiations," if so 
they can be called, snub Ollivier; she turned her back 
towards him while he was sitting next to her at the 
table. When Gramont read the declaration of war 
at St Cloud " she clapped her hands." 

On another occasion, also during the crisis, the 
Emperor, in his consort's presence, told Marshal 
Le Boeuf that there was a scheme for trying to arrange 
for a conference of the Powers to consider the whole 
question. " Well, Marshal, what do you think of the 
project? " the Empress asked the then Minister for 
War. He replied that war would certainly have 
been preferable, but, as all idea of fighting had been 
abandoned, the Government's proposal of a confer- 
ence appeared to him to be the best thing to do. The 
Marshal's answer exasperated her Majesty, who 



86 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

excitedly exclaimed : " What ! An'd do you, too, 
approve of this cowardice ? If you wish to dishonour 
yourselves, do not dishonour the Emperor." " Oh ! " 
said the Emperor, " how can you speak like that to 
a man who has given so many proofs of devotion? " 
She saw that she had made a mistake, expressed her 
deep regret, and embraced the Marshal, begging 
him to forget her " vivacity." Ollivier, who could 
have had no particular desire to flatter her, says : 
" The Empress wished, through the Marshal, to aim 
at the middle course which we had reached, and she 
had not spoken too strongly. That evening she felt, 
thought and spoke justly. Her revolt was legitimate, 
and she was right to use her power to discard an 
expedient which, without preserving peace, would have 
discrediteH the Emperor for ever." From the first 
she had not regarded Ollivier favourably : the proof 
of this assertion is to be found in a letter written by the 
Emperor to Ollivier (not mentioned by him in his work) 
asking him to enter the Tuileries through one of the 
small garden gates, so that the Empress might not be 
aware of his visits ! 

Those possessed of the legal mind will best appreci- 
ate the construction of " L'Empire Liberal " and the 
author's deft manipulation of facts. The seventeen 
volumes are indeed mosaics of facts, from which we 
can safely draw our inferences. We may all admire 
Ollivier as a literary artificer — one who is his own 
architect and his own builder. In forming an opinion 
of his great gifts as a litterateur, we must remember 
that he had been a successful practising barrister. 
In that capacity he had read so many briefs that the 
unusual task of preparing one in his own defence 
was comparatively easy. His main difficulty at the 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 87 

outset was that of sifting the mountains of detail. 
In his latest years he had to face the terror of almost 
complete blindness. Even this disability did not 
dismay him, and he struggled on with the aid of his 
wife and daughter. In the handling of his case, 
Ollivier reminds one of Lord Russell of Killowen 
when he was at the Bar, and also of Henry Matthews 
(Lord Llandaff). Perhaps the last comparison is the 
better of the two, for some incline to the opinion that 
in the presentation of cases to juries Matthews sur- 
passed Russell, simply because his education had 
given him the finesse of the Frenchman. However this 
may be, Ollivier, in the preparation of his plaidoirie, 
proved himself to be at least the equals of Russell 
and Matthews, and probably of Berryer. For the 
rest, he was a Meridional, and had all the exuberance 
of the Southerner combined with much of the level- 
headedness and common-sense of the Northerner. He 
has made out a case for himself which is incontro- 
vertible because it is composed of facts; some of 
these have been questioned by M. Welschinger and 
others, but not very convincingly, although Ollivier's 
indignation and bitterness occasionally led him into 
unintentional exaggerations. 

In 191 1 I was in active correspondence with 
M. Ollivier on matters which he deemed of great 
importance; and it may be not uninteresting to give 
a few translated extracts from some of his letters to 
me, as they show his extreme sensitiveness respecting 
all that was published about him by others, particularly 
when statements attributed on the merest hearsay 
to the Empress Eugenie were adduced as evidence 
against him. 

On September 23, 191 1, he wrote : 



88 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

" I am having read to me your very interesting volume. * 
Before finishing it and meditating upon it, I shall be greatly 
obliged by your enlightening me upon two points. In one 
chapter there are some extracts, taken from ' Her Own Chaplet 
of Memories, ' in which the Empress Eugenie is made to, say : 
' I know how to get rid of them [General Fleury and Ollivier] 
and to deliver the Emperor from them.' You will be render- 
ing me real service by telling me from what document you have 
taken that phrase and the date of it. 

" Again, you narrate what passed between Palikao [Ollivier 's 
successor as President of the Council] and the Empress when 
the former arrived at the Tuileries on August 9, 1870, in the 
morning. I particularly want to know the source from whence 
you derived that information. 

" You will have received a week ago a letter in which I 
thanked you for your amiable dedication. Believe me when I say 
I am much touched by it, and that it is with my whole heart 
that I repeat my expressions of sincere sympathy. 

"la little regret that you have given credence to the allega- 
tion of M. Welschinger respecting a pretended letter of excuse 
asked of the King of Prussia by the Due de Gramont. The 
statement as presented hy that writer is absolutely false. He 
shows himself in his book a malicious imbecile, of bad faith. 
He has calumniated Gramont, as I have demonstrated in my 
volumes xiv. and xv. " 

I furnished M. Ollivier with all the information he 
desired, and he wrote (October 14, 191 1) : 

" The various letters in which you have so obligingly given 
me the information which I asked you for, and the excellent 
article [in which I had defended him from an attack in re the 
' light heart ' phrase] you have sent me, have given me extreme 
pleasure. They prove your love of and respect for the truth. 
I thank you a thousand times, and am still more sensible of 
the beautiful dedication which you have so kindly written. 

" (Signed) Emile Ollivier." f 

* " The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire " (dedi- 
cated to him). 

t His handwriting was very large, bold, firm and somewhat 
resembled that of a boy of seven or eight, 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 89 

M. Ollivier's letter of thanks shows that he was 
greatly soothed by my assurance that, upon investiga- 
tion, I had ascertained that the statement quoted 
by me and attributed to the Empress Eugenie [" I 
shall know how to get rid of them "] referred only 
to General Fleury, not to M. Ollivier. 

M. Welschinger, with whom Ollivier was so char- 
acteristically irate, is the author of the admirable 
and, I believe, reliable and thoroughly impartial 
work, " Les Causes et les Responsabilites de la Guerre 
de 1870," which appeared in 19 10. One of the pass- 
ages in my book concerning him which evoked 
Ollivier's wrath is as follows : — 



" An extraordinary story, told by M. Welschinger," I wrote, 
" makes one wonder whether some of those surrounding the 
Empress in 1870 were in their right minds. It was proposed 
that the King of Prussia should be asked to write a letter to 
Napoleon III. to satisfy the ^nergum^nes [fanatics], of whom 
the Empress was one, and the Due de Gramont actually 
drafted and sent to the King a note of what his Majesty was 
to say ! King William had been very pleased when he thought 
that all danger of war had vanished by the withdrawal of 
the Hohenzollern Prince from the Spanish candidature, and 
in so uselessly and gratuitously wounding him the French 
Cabinet alienated the only person who could check Bismarck. 
King William was disgusted. * Was there ever such insol- 
ence? ' he wrote to Queen Augusta. ' They want me to appear 
before the world as a repentant sinner.' " 

Reference to volumes xv. and xvi. of " L'Empire 
Liberal " will show that Gramont did, as M. Wel- 
schinger stated, and as I quoted from his book, 
draft and send a letter to the King coolly telling him, 
in so many words, what he was to say ! All that 
Ollivier denies is that what was demanded was a 



90 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

lettre d'excuses. On this point it is difficult to agree 
with him. 

During his gilded and in every way agreeable 
captivity in Germany, in 1 870-1 871, the Emperor said : 
" Ollivier is not responsible for the war. He is 
as innocent as I am. My enemies know that well, and 
so does M. Bismarck. Ollivier is not responsible 
for any of the misfortunes of France. Neither he nor 
I desired war." * 

This handsome tribute does not deter Ollivier from 
speaking his mind about Napoleon HI. Inter alia 
he says : — 

" The first evidence I instinctively had, which was confirmed 
by all the evidence, was that our ill-luck at the outset was due 
to the pitiable state of health of the Emperor ; that his being 
in command had compromised the army and would finish it if 
someone did not remove him. , . . From letters and visits I 
gathered that the unanimous opinion was that it was physically 
impossible for him to continue in supreme command. * He 
does not command,' they said, ' and he will not allow anyone 
else to command.' " 

There were early signs that the " solidity " of 
the army was weakening. The intolerable va-et-vient 
over the same ground was tiring it. It was troubled 
by the reports of the defeats of Worth and Forbach. 
It was no longer the " invincible " army; but with 
an active chief at its head Ollivier thought it would 
regain its moral ; otherwise all was lost. One way of 
retiring the Emperor from his command was to 
replace him at the head of the State by recalling him 
to Paris. To those who urged that such a course 
would be unprecedented the encyclopaedic Ollivier 

*" WilhelmshShe," by Dr Mels, the Emperor's medical attend- 
ant during his Majesty's " imprisonment." 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 91 

produced two precedents — the cases of the Tsars 
Alexander I. (1812) an'd Nicholas I. (1828-1829). 
The return of Napoleon to Paris in August would 
have secured him the thanks of the nation and also 
put an end to the Regency. Either the Emperor as 
Commander-in-Chief, or the Regency, said Ollivier, 
must be suppressed. But neither of these possibilities 
happened. The Empress had many remarkable gifts, 
but that of " authority " was not among them. It 
was a quality which emanated naturally from the 
Emperor, causing certain men to follow him blindly 
without question. " With him at the head of affairs 
in Paris many things would have been easy ; with the 
Empress as Regent such things would have been," 
in fact were, " difficult. If not impossible." 

Every conceivable change was effected except 
this one, the most desirable of all in the opinion of the 
Empire's best friends. Napoleon III., strongly 
supported by " our cousin," the often intractable 
Prince Napoleon, had fully reconciled himself to it. 
The Empress would not assent to Ollivier's proposal, 
although there was a moment when, amidst her tears, 
she appeared to be giving way to the Prime Minister's 
entreaties to save the army, the dynasty, and the 
country by " permitting " her consort and their son 
to return. At this moment a full week had not 
elapsed since the clash of arms was first heard at 
Saarbriicken (August 2), but already three sanguinary 
battles had been fought, and the thinking world 
regarded France as a spent force. The boldest 
prophets had not predicted the imminence of a Sedan, 
the capture of an army of 80,000 survivors, the 
personal surrender of the Emperor, and his imprison- 
ment in Germany for nearly seven months, 



92 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Ollivier knew more than most men about the causes 
of and responsibilities for the war, but there was one 
living within rifle range of Aldershot who knew even 
more than the author of "L'Empire Liberal/' although 
he was too modest to admit it. M. Franceschini Pietri 
had been in England forty-five years, but outside of 
Farnborough Hill he was not much better known 
by the English public than when he arrived at 
Chislehurst from Wilhelmshohe with the Emperor 
in March, 1871. I did not think I should have had 
occasion again to name him. It is, however, appro- 
priate to present him here as, until his death in 191 5, 
he was the only survivor of the men of the Second 
Empire who could have revealed to us the whole story 
of the events many of which, but not all, have 
been narrated by Ollivier. The most amiable and 
gentle of men, he was likewise the most reticent : he 
personified Silence. I have been the flattered recipient 
of many letters from him in the course of years. 
Only one was meant for publication, but it was of 
exceptional importance, for in it M. Pietri revealed 
the secret of the forged " Memoirs " of the Empress 
Eugenie which, at all hazards, will, I suspect, be 
thrown on the book-markets of the world some day, 
for it is known that thousands of copies were printed 
in all languages and bound, ready for issue at any 
moment. (Vide Chapter V.) 

In the years 1866- 1870 the French Military Attache 
at Berlin was Colonel Stoffel. His reports on Prussian 
military affairs — reforms, preparations for contingen- 
cies and the like — were intended to be warnings 
to Napoleon III. and his ministers. Had they been 
heeded there would have been no war in 1870, and we 
should have had no " apology for my life " from 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 93 

M. Emile Ollivier. Colonel Stoffel's reports — or 
many of them — were sent to M. Pietri, and by him 
handed to the Emperor. Stoffel and Pietri also 
corresponded privately. One day I was surprised 
at seeing in a leading Paris review * a series of 
letters exchanged between Stoffel and the Emperor 
Napoleon's (later the Empress Eugenie's) secretary. 
One of these letters tends to exculpate Ollivier. In 
1 87 1 M. Pietri wrote to Colonel Stoffel : 

" I have always done you justice, and to-day more than 
ever I recognise that you were right, and that if you had been 
listened to we should not have been where we are ; but all 
were blind — Ministers, statesmen, the Deputies who were in 
the majority and those who formed the opposition. Everybody 
worked against the country. The Emperor alone, perhaps, 
saw correctly, but blocked every moment by the remarks of 
some, and by the ill-will of others, he was carried away and 
unable to carry out many of the plans which he had formed. 
I admit that he must bear the responsibility, for in this world 
there must always be a scapegoat ; but opinion will calm down, 
and by degrees will better appreciate the responsibility of each. 
The Emperor's responsibility will then be lessened." 

M. Pietri's opinion, as expressed in this letter, will 
strike many as of greater value than anything con- 
tained in either of the seventeen volumes of " L'Empire 
Liberal," and for this reason : all that Ollivier has 
written was intended for publication; M. Pietri could 
hardly have anticipated that his letters to Stoffel 
would one day see the light. I cannot guess what 
impulse moved him to allow these letters to appear 
during the Empress's lifetime. It will be seen that he 

*The " Revue de Paris," June 15— July i, 191 1. M. Pietri's 
valuable letters occupy several pages of " The Comedy and 
Tragedy of the Second Empire," published by Messrs Harper & 
Brothers, London and New York. 



94 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

does not refer to any individual by name, except 
the Emperor. With one sweep of the pen he makes 
all responsible. " Everybody worked against the 
country." They had been so working for years : many 
authentic records of the time prove it. 

Only M. Pietri could have answered this question : 
" Were Stoffel's reports seen and read by Ollivier? " 
Marshal Niel, Le Boeuf's predecessor as War Minister, 
must have seen them, for M. Pietri tells us that 
after his appointment to that post Niel " accomplished 
veritable tours de force "; and he significantly adds 
(March 22, 1868): " We can say that we are ready 
for all events." Le Boeuf did not say more. 

In another letter to Stoffel (May 28, 1868) M. Pietri 
says : " You appear to be highly thought of at the 
Ministry of War, where your reports are appreciated 
in a manner very flattering to you. ... I am happy 
to tell you to-day that our military position is superb. 
Never have we had so many resources — never a finer 
army." * What more did Le Boeuf say.^ Ollivier 
was much less precise. 

When Thiers came into power Stoffel got his 
reward : on some frivolous pretext he was dismissed 
from the army, and died in 1907 at the age of eighty- 
eight. While Stoffel was so splendidly serving France 
at Berlin, the Prussian Military Attache at Paris 
was General von Loe, whose reports convinced his 
Government of the inferiority of the French army. 
In two of Ollivier's volumes (xiv. and xvi.) I have not 
met with the names of these attaches, all-important 
as were the parts they played in the four years pre- 
ceding the war. As regards Stoffel, I find that 

* " The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire." 
Harper & Brothers, London and New York. 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 95 

during the war the " Times" published extracts from his 
reports, with the comment that " it was a puzzle how 
anyone who had read those documents could have 
ever dreamed of plunging France into a war with 
Prussia." Yet Stoffel has been unaccountably over- 
looked by many historians of the period, and it was to 
M. Pietri that we are now indebted for our most 
extensive knowledge of " the man who gave the 
warning " which should have saved France. 

As Stoffel's reports were under the eyes of Marshal 
Niel, it is safe to assume that Marshal Le Boeuf saw 
them, in which case the latter was justified in saying, 
a few days before the outbreak of the war : " We are 
ready, more than ready." * What he did not say 
was " il ne nous manque pas un bouton de guetre," 
although this " corporal's language," as Ollivier terms 
it, has been used against him for forty-five years. 

Le Boeuf and Ollivier were on intimate terms, and 
the latter claims that he has completely rehabilitated 
his friend, as in volume xvii. he presents an innocent, 
unfortunate Bazaine. It is, then, also fair to assume 
— yet it is only an assumption — that Ollivier knew 
all about Stoffel's reports, and that, fortified by 
Le Boeuf's promptings, in a measure based upon 
those documents, he felt justified in expressing the 
belief that France could embark on war with Prussia 
with full confidence in the result. Ollivier is, like the 
Emperor, very firm in his declaration that Le Boeuf 
was in no way blameable. I suggest that when that 
general asserted the readiness of France to enter 
upon war he spoke, in the accepted legal phrase, 
according to the best of his knowledge and belief. 

* Nous sommes pr^ts, archi-prets, " the phrase which de- 
stroyed Le Boeuf, as the " coeur l^ger " destroyed Ollivier. 



96 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

He should have added, after " we are ready, more 
than ready," the saving clause, " provided that all do 
their duty." He had no reason to suppose that some 
chiefs of departments would fail him at the critical 
moment and that others would lose their heads. 
To ridicule and cast opprobrium upon men like 
Ollivier, Le Boeuf and Bazaine must necessarily be 
the reverse of gratifying to their successors ; similarly 
we fail to appreciate criticisms of our statesmen and 
generals by foreigners. We have had, even recently, 
our own failures ; but only the few recall them when 
fancied opportunities to do so arise, although there 
can always be found in every country superior persons 
ready to spoil good paper by resurrecting the defects 
of those endowed with less intelligence than them- 
selves. " 'Tis not in mortals to command success," 
but most men endeavour to deserve it. France, in 
1870, had many good generals and some who, for 
various reasons, fell far below the expectations which 
had been formed of them. All who saw the French 
forces in the field forty-five years ago have borne 
witness to their valour. Their cavalry charges at 
Sedan, led by De Galliffet and others, can never be 
forgotten. The artillery duel on that day, I remember, 
was waged from early morning until the late after- 
noon. The French infantry, like the Germans, fought 
stubbornly during the greater part of the day, until 
it was obvious that further resistance would have 
been madness ; then it was that the agonised Emperor 
stopped the carnage. Bearing in mind all the cir- 
cumstances it was not very surprising that insubordina- 
tion broke out, not in the field, but in the doomed 
town of Sedan. That was the culminating misfortune 
of the day for France; but surely it was more a 
matter for pity than for harsh criticism. 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 97 

Historians — competent ones — agree, as does Olli- 
vier, that the presence of the Emperor with the army 
was a calamity of itself. His health was so bad that 
he could be of no use. In his early days — when 
he was a prisoner at Ham — he had been a devoted 
student of military subjects. Between 1866 and 
1870 (as we now know from M. Pietri's letters to 
Stoffel) he had read very attentively the latter's 
reports, and should consequently have been able 
to gauge the value of the Prussian army. But he 
does not seem to have derived much practical benefit 
from his study of those illuminating documents. 
It was not, needless to say, for him to prepare the 
plan of campaign ; that was based partly on the ideas 
of Marshals Niel and Le Boeuf, the War Ministers; 
MacMahon, Bazaine, Frossard, Trochu and other 
generals following the trend of their own ideas — good 
sometimes, but too frequently indifferent. Bazaine, 
for example, after doing magnificently, allowed him- 
self to be shut up, with his fine army, none finer, in 
Metz; and MacMahon, weary of protesting, allowed 
himself to be driven into Moltke's mouse-trap. He 
was, however, acting on orders, and so must be held 
wholly blameless. Admittedly the French had no 
one gifted with the strategic genius of Moltke, 
although they had more than one Steinmetz. * If 
enthusiasm could always be relied upon to win battles, 
the French would have won many, as they have done 
in 1914-1915 and will do again. But enthusiasm minus 
consummate generalship, such, for example, as that 
of Joffre and French, is of little avail. The German 
plans were cut-and-dried, and had been in their 

*This general was superseded in his command, as his brain 
had become affected. 



98 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

pigeon-holes almost long enough to have got dusty; 
but I will venture to say that, when they were taken 
out and fondly looked at, early in July, when Benedetti 
began, by order, his senseless worryings of King 
William at Ems, they were virgin white — not a speck 
of dust upon them. On the other side there was, of 
course, Trochu with his famous "plan," which was 
seen to be useless on the first day it was attempted 
to put it into practice (August 2, at Saarbriicken). 
Yet on that day the French gained a " victory '' 
— their first and last. And it was won merely by 
overpowering numbers ; even so, Frossard blundered 
badly by not taking advantage of the " success " 
by following it up ; for the handful of Germans had 
to fly for their lives. At that time, as I have cause 
to remember, and for several days after, the German 
forces, as I saw " with my eyes," were still being 
mobilised. Prince Hohenlohe says in his "Memoirs" : 
" We left Berlin on July 30, and it was not until August 
16 that all our troops were collected together." B«t 
in the interim some of the greatest battles of the 
campaign were won by the invaders. 

" The whirligig of Time " brought OUivier his 
" revenge " for all the contumely which was heaped 
upon him. What the world at large, with a sublime 
indifference to, and ignorance of, the exact grammatical 
meaning of his coeur leger, condemned and still con- 
demns him for uttering in the Chamber has had the 
happy result of placing him in the shrine of Memory. 

Emile Ollivier had three homes : one in the Rue 
Desbordes-Valmore, Passy; another, his " hermi- 
tage," at St Gervais, in the Savoy mountains, where he 
died on the 30th of August, 191 3 ; and a third at St 
Tropez, in the Mediterranean, at the point of the 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 99 

Cap de la Moutte, where he was buried. Rising 
at daybreak, he began work immediately, and con- 
tinued it uninterruptedly until the evening. When, 
in his latter years, his eyesight failed him, he dictated 
to his two secretaries, his wife and daughter. Those 
who have read his seventeen volumes, bristling with 
names, dates and extracts from books, letters, diaries 
and journals, varied and illustrated by quotations 
from classic authors, will realise the arduous duties of 
his assistants. 

" He could not prevent himself from being eloquent. He was 
so even in conversation. His Sunday receptions at Passy were 
a fete de la parole, and will remain graven in the memories 
of the few friends who faithfully grouped themselves round 
him. He seemed at first somewhat distrait, as if he was in a 
dream which he could not banish ; but when a matter of general 
interest came up, when allusions to historical events were made, 
or someone referred to contemporary discussions, he was 
suddenly metamorphosed. He liked best to evoke his souvenirs 
of the Liberal Empire. He so described the actors in those 
scenes that his listeners saw them. It was a marvel of 
evocation. I remember Henry Houssaye saying one day of 
these evenings at Passy : ' Never in my life have I heard 
anything more beautiful.' He might have added : * Or more 
impressive.' The man was charming, with his grace, his 
desire to please and a sort of natural coquetry. He loved to 
share the cares of others. He who had seen so much, and 
had had such rough experiences, had preserved an ingenuous- 
ness, a candour, I might almost say a naivete, which made all 
love him immediately they were brought into contact with him. 
He lived the simplest life, indifferent to luxury, comfort and 
exterior pleasures. To tell the truth, he was insensible to all 
these. He lived with his thoughts. I often saw him in the 
bosom of his family at the chalet of St Gervais where he spent 
his summers. It is a rustic chMet, almost a peasant's house. 
Close by is the glorious panorama of the Alps. His great 
happiness was his daily walk in the incomparable region. 
In the winter he went to his home at the Moutte, near St Tropez, 



loo EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

where he passed the cold months in work and meditation. 
There he had prepared his tomb, and there he sleeps." * 

About Ollivier the man there was something of 
a Gladstonian charm and obstinacy. It happened that 
one of my friends spent many hours with the author 
of " L'Empire Liberal " at Passy, a few weeks before 
his death in August, 19 13, discussing with him a 
proposal to issue his final volume in a new cheap series 
of eminent authors. Ollivier had just celebrated his 
eighty-eighth birthday — a period when the majority 
of men think more about " making their soul " than 
about the making of books. But he greeted the 
idea with all the enthusiasm of a literary beginner. 
There was a hitch in the negotiations. OUivier's 
publishers disapproved of the proposition, and it 
was certainly within their right to object, for the 
volumes of " L' Empire Liberal " are priced at 
3 f. 50 c, and the issue of one of them, also in 
French, by a rival, at a shilling, seemed to them a 
thing to avoid. Hence a contest between author and 
publishers. But even literary quarrels come to an 
end sooner or later, and Ollivier ended this one in his 
fearless old fashion. " If," he declared emphatically, 
" they continue to object, I will bring an action 
against them." Then matters " arranged them- 
selves." " Now," he remarked gleefully, " I can 
say, ' Nunc Dimittis.' " 

The " Libre Parole " is the organ of M. Edouard 
Drumont, noted for his active participation in the 
" Judenhetze," and in that journal he devoted a 
sympathetic article to Ollivier tWo Hays after his 

* Rend Doumic (de I'Acaddmie Fran9aise), in the " Gaulois," 
August, 1913. 



EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER loi 

death, thus discounting the effect produced by a 
"disabling" obituary notice, published on the previous 
day in the same paper from the pen of M. Paul 
Vergnet, who wrote : " D'un cceur leger M. Emile 
Ollivier nous mena a Sedan." This leads me to 
note that Ollivier said to a mutual friend a month 
before his death : " I must tell you that I have never 
felt the least hurt by the use of this phrase against 
me; nor have I ever attributed my unpopularity to 
it. That unpopularity resulted from other causes, 
and would have existed even if I had never spoken 
of a ' light heart.' Do not unduly exaggerate little 
things." 



CHAPTER X 

THE EMPRESS IN HER OWN 
COUNTRY 

In 19 1 5 the Empress once more visited Spain. Her 
intimate acquaintance with the Royal House extends 
over a period of seventy years. She saw Queen 
Isabella married in 1846; after she had become the 
consort of Napoleon III. she visited the Queen in 
1863; and in 1868, when Isabella was compelled 
to leave Spain, the Emperor and Empress received 
her at Biarritz. For a couple of years or so the sons 
of the ex-Queen and the Empress were playmates in 
Paris. Later, the two youths had renewed their 
childish friendship in London, when the late 
Alfonso XII. was a Sandhurst student and the Prince 
Imperial was being prepared for Woolwich. Isabella's 
son ascended the throne in January, 1875, and as, 
between that date and the end of 1879, when the 
Comtesse de Montijo passed away, the Empress 
visited her mother at Madrid, she could hardly have 
failed to see the late King, who had begun to reign 
a few days before his eighteenth birthday. Thus, 
from 1846, first as Mile de Montijo, then as Empress, 
and later as a dethroned sovereign, the august lady, 
godmother of the present Queen, has been au mieux 
with the members of the Royal House of Spain. 

Before the engagement of Alfonso XIII. to the 
only daughter of Princess Henry of Battenberg the 

102 



IN HER OWN COUNTRY 103 

Empress was again seen at Madrid. The King's 
gaze — so it was said — had been turned in another 
direction ; but the attraction appears not to have been 
mutual. Let us (for it will do no great harm) take 
the romantic view of the situation, and assume that 
the venerable, and always delightful, chatelaine of 
Farnborough Hill appeared on the scene, fulfilled 
the role of fairy godmother with complete success, 
and was the means of making two young people very 
happy. Such things do not often happen out of the 
story-books ; but every rule has its exception. 

At Madrid, then, in 19 15, the Empress was chez elle. 
Everything she saw was more or less familiar to her. 
Many of the faces were new. 

In January, 1875, in the war time, I was at the 
late King's " reception." The army, the navy, the 
official world, the professions and the trades sent their 
picked men. Beautiful women, and others, swarmed. 
It was less a Royal than an Aladdin's Palace. 
Four Englishmen * — no, one was an Italian, by name 
Gallenga — did homage to the boy-King, who stood 
the ordeal of the interminable defile as one petrified, 
gazing not at the bespangled throng, but over their 
heads. He who was to be thereafter known as the 
" Rey-Caballero," standing on the dais for long hours, 
looked as one in a ciream. Eleven days before 
I had seen him, in Paris, taking farewell of his 
mother at the Gare de Lyon, and Count Mirasol 
and Colonel Velasco (his *' governors " while he 
was at Sandhurst) were bidding him hasten, for the 
Marseilles rapide was starting, and would wait for no 

*Mr Gallenga ("Times"), Mr G. A. Sala ("Daily Tele- 
graph), Mr A. Forbes ("Daily News"), and the author 
(" Morning Post"). Only the last survives in 1916. 



I04 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

man, be he king or peasant. I had, and presented, 
a letter of introduction to King Alfonso, and was 
invited to travel to Spain with the suite as the 
representative of the " Morning Post." It was one of 
my own " great " years. 

On the 1 6th of May, 1909, the niece of King Edward 
had been Queen of Spain three years less a fortnight, 
and the Empress had an opportunity of gauging 
the sentiments of the ruling classes vis-a-vis her 
goddaughter. In those three years the august god- 
mother had doubtless, as we all had, heard and read 
not a little concerning Queen Victoria Eugenie's 
popularity or otherwise. One thing is certain : by all 
she was admitted to be " a beautiful girl." " Es 
una real moya " — this was the phrase on everybody's 
lips. But what your Spaniard says to-day has been 
known to differ from what he has said on the morrow. 
When, in 1875, I could not conceal my amazement 
at the frantic demonstrations of joy evoked at 
Barcelona, at Valencia, at Madrid and at Saragossa at 
the sight of the erewhile Sandhurst Cadet, some 
who had long resided in the Peninsula waxed 
sarcastic over the " vivas," and the triumphal arches, 
and the flights of the gaily decorated pigeons, and the 
addresses of welcome. All these outward tokens of 
enthusiasm, they told me, had greeted King Amadeus 
(afterwards Prince Napoleon's brother-in-law), who, 
none the less, after reigning some three years, had 
taken the only course which seemed open to him — 
that of abdication. A handful of officials gathered 
at the railway station to " speed the parting guest," 
and " saw him off " with much composure. But tears 
glistened in the ex-King's eyes. 

While the Empress's goddaughter won aristocrats 



IN HER OWN COUNTRY 105 

and plebeians alike by her personal loveliness, the 
Madrilenians soon began to criticise her " English 
ways." This was a repetition of the treatment meted 
out to Queen Marie Christine, who, for a long time 
after her marriage with Alfonso XII., was contemptu- 
ously spoken of as " The Austrian." The consort 
of Alfonso XIII. (cousin of King George V.) was 
voted too exclusive. One day she had actually com- 
plained to an official that the Palace stairs were 
dusty; and people went about saying that it was 
undignified for a queen to notice such trifles. Queen 
Victoria Eugenie did not appreciate the free-and-easy 
way in which the sovereign people — some in rags 
and some in tags — stroll about the precincts of the 
Palace. All the street urchins and beggars of Madrid 
assemble (I have seen them) in the morning to witness 
the guard-mounting in the fortress which forms part 
of the Palace; they may enter the inner courtyard 
from the Orient Square at all hours of the day; 
neither sentries nor halberdiers take any notice of 
them. So different from the iron rules in force at 
Buckingham Palace, where those who gather when 
the guard is being changed are made to stand at a 
respectful distance from the gilded railings ! 

As, in the early months of her marriage. Queen 
Marie Christine, surrounded by her own compatriots, 
had been found " too Austrian," so complaints were 
rife that the consort of Alfonso XIII. was " too 
English " ; in other words, she had failed to become 
" espagnolisee." On the day (it was a Sunday) 
following the return of the young Sovereigns from 
their first visit to England, there was an immense 
gathering at the Palace to witness the " capilla." 
On this occasion the people are admitted to see the 



io6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

members of the Royal Family pass in procession 
through the corridors on their way to hear Mass. 
The crowd of foreigners and natives, M. Henri 
Charriault tells us, was particularly large on that 
December Sunday, and all were anxious to see the 
Queen. Her Majesty was unfortunately too fatigued 
by her long voyage to appear. It was given out 
that she had a sore throat; but this did not prevent 
her from being seen by the people on the Palace 
terrace in the evening. " The story was circulated 
that she had pretended to be unwell in order to escape 
from an exhibition which wearied her. Nothing 
was, however, more probable than that the journey 
had caused her to be indisposed. This is how matters 
stand at Madrid." 

The Empress's grand-nephew, the Due d'Albe, 
whom she has occasionally visited at Loeches, where 
his ancestors are buried, was born at Madrid in 
October, 1878, and is the son of Carlos, ninth Duke 
of Berwick and sixteenth Due d'Albe, who died 
on board Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht at New York in 
October, 1901. The late Due was the nephew of the 
Empress Eugenie, his predecessor having married 
her Majesty's only sister, Francisca de Montijo, in 
1844, and died in 1881, twenty-one years after his 
wife's death. The present Due d'Albe, whom some 
of us saw at Farnborough in 191 5, is a descendant 
of General Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, that lamb- 
like Duke of Alba who was Stadtholder of the 
Netherlands temp. Philip II. 

The seventeenth Due d'Albe, tenth Duke of Berwick, 
and Due de Leiria, has a residence at Madrid (the 
Leiria Palace) and a country seat at Loeches, eighteen 
miles from the capital, and at both places he has 



IN HER OWN COUNTRY 107 

entertained his Imperial grand-aunt. In 1906 his 
sister, Dona Sol Stuart Fitzjames, married the 
Duque de Santora, brother-in-law of Lady William 
Nevill (daughter of the Marquesa de Santurce, 
better known in England as Mme de Murrieta, and 
(daughter-in-law of the late Marquis of Abergavenny). 
The mother of the Duquesa de Santona will be 
remembered as a one-time familiar figure in the 
Leicestershire hunting fields; the Duquesa herself 
is credited with a love of sport, and her brother 
" Alba " has been often seen in the polo grounds of 
Hurlingham and Ranelagh. 

Among the hostesses of the Empress was the 
Duquesa Fernan Nunez, who has given, at the 
Cervellon Palace, dinner-parties in honour of her 
Imperial friend. The guests have comprised the 
hostess's children and relatives, the Due d'Albe, 
the Due de Montellano,the Marquess and the Marquesa 
La Mina, the Conde de Montijo, Prince and Princess 
Clement Metternich, and other friends. 

It would not occupy much space to record the 
appearances made by the Empress at dinner-tables in 
England since the autumn of 1870. Few now living 
can, as did Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower, remember 
her a guest at London houses during her over forty-five 
years' residence at Chislehurst and Farnborough 
Hill. At Windsor Castle she was entertained at 
long intervals by Queen Victoria, and when the 
Empress was residing in Scotland the two ladies 
frequently met. But the Empress has rarely mingled 
in general society in England, and when she has 
been staying in Paris only a very few intimate friends 
— the Mouchys and the Murats, and some others — 
have seen her at their dinner-tables. It was an 



io8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

event, but it passed unnoticed, when, in December, 
1907, she lunched for the last time at Buckingham 
Palace with King Edward and Queen Alexandra. 
In the autumn of 19 10 she lunched with King George 
and the Queen at Marlborough House. The Empress 
has often received members of our Royal House 
at Farnborough Hill — notably Princess Christian and 
Princess Henry of Battenberg — but I fail to remember 
if King Edward and his consort ever dined there. 

To all but those who have seen the Escurial with 
their own eyes — not merely read about it in matter-of- 
fact guide-books — the bare statement that the Empress 
Eugenie has journeyed thither and laid wreaths 
on the tombs of the sovereigns and infantas whose 
place of sepulture it is would be meaningless. The 
Escurial is both a palace and a monastery, constructed 
by Philip II. to commemorate a great victory which 
his troops won at St Quentin on the loth of August, 
1557, the festival of St Lawrence. " I will build 
a hovel for myself, a palace for God," said the King, 
who chose a site at the foot of the mountains. Here 
lie the remains of all the Spanish sovereigns, beginning 
with Charles V., the kings on one side, the queens 
on the other, in separate niches. Philip V. was 
the first of the Bourbons who would not consent to 
be placed among his predecessors of the House of 
Austria. 

As visitors leave the sepulchre the custodian — 
one of many such — strikes a marble plaque in the wall 
and says significantly, " El pudrido." It is there 
that the dead sovereigns' bodies decompose and 
putrefy. They are placed on a grating, under a 
tap of ever-running water, and not deposited in their 
marble urns in the Pantheon until they are entirely 



IN HER OWN COUNTRY 109 

decomposed, and only skeletons remain. Some years 
ago all that remained of Alfonso XII. was removed 
to the Pantheon; the body of the present King's 
grandmother, Isabella II. (if so it may be termed), 
reposes where it was originally placed, under the jet 
of water. Until the advent of the Bourbons the 
Royal bodies were not treated in this manner, but 
were embalmed. In 1870 the cojSin of Charles V. 
was opened, and revealed the Emperor's body in 
a state of remarkable preservation. " Of all the 
others," asks M. Charriault, " what remains? 
Horror seizes us when we think of the unmentionable 
condition of the greatest of the great in this world." 

Rousing ourselves from this nightmare, we get a 
sensation of repose upon entering the Pantheon 
of the youthful members of the Royal House in 
their white marble tombs. This crypt, under the 
sacristy, was repaired by Isabella II. and the 
Montpensier family. * Here are the bodies of the 
young Queen Mercedes, first consort of Alfonso XII., 
and of her two sisters. Princesses of the House 
of Orleans, cut off in the flower of their youth, one 
of whom, the Infante Christine, had been affianced 
to the present King's father. Both are represented 
reclining upon their tomb. Grouped in a kind of 
pyramid of coffins, and still more coffins, are those, all 
white, of children, apart from each other, and supported 
by sculptured angels, also white. They are the 
little princes of the Royal House who entered into 
their last sleep at a tender age. 

Very familiar to the Empress are the portraits 
of Charles V. and Philip II. The first shows a man 

* The Comtesse de Paris, mother of the Due d 'Orleans and 
Queen Amelie, is a Montpensier. 



no EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

pale, energetic, with powerful jaw — a man of action 
and strong will; the other, the son, is fair, cold- 
looking, of a Flemish type, with an enigmatical 
expression and a disdainful mouth. 

Quitting the monastery visitors find themselves in 
an immense park, with long shady alleys. Through 
the leafage are vistas of the Guadarama range. At the 
far end of the park rises the Casita del Principe, a 
bijou palace, built for that Prince of Asturia who 
became Charles IV. It is a museum of pictures, 
porcelain, silk hangings and ivory ornaments. But 
nothing can efface the gloomy impression derived 
from the lugubrious necropolis. There are three 
large empty tombs, void of inscription at present. 
" This one," says the guide, nonchalantly, " is for 
the Queen-Mother, Maria Christine ; this, for Alfonso 
XIII.; this, for Queen Victoria Eugenie. They 
are all ready ! '* 



CHAPTER XI 

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 

On January 9, 1873, Napoleon HI., Emperor of the 
French, died at Camden Place, Chislehurst, where 
he had resided since the middle of March, 1871, after 
being in captivity at the Castle of Wilhelmshohe 
as a result of his surrender to the King of Prussia on 
the 2nd of September, 1870, the day after the 
battle of Sedan. That tragedy and the boy-Prince's 
" baptism of fire " at Saarbriicken on the 2nd of 
August I have recorded. 

Father Goddard gave me a place close to the coffin 
at the funeral in the little Church of St Mary, and on 
the following day I was one of two Englishmen (my 
friend, Captain Baynes, of the Metropolitan Police, 
was the other) who were privileged to be present 
at the Empress's reception of those who had come 
from France to pay the " last marks of respect " — 
marshals, generals, statesmen, officials and a con- 
course of personal friends of all ranks, from the 
highest to the humblest. Six years and a half later 
I stood by the bier of the Prince Imperial, and in 
1888 I saw the remains of the Emperor and his son 
taken from Chislehurst and placed in the crypt of 
St Michael's at Farnborough. The Emperor, the 
Empress and the Prince — all three I had seen in 



112 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Paris before the " Terrible Year." The English 
scenes I recorded in the " Morning Post." 

On May 5, 19 15, the Empress Eugenie was 
eighty-nine. She has now passed half of her life 
in England, varied by her voyages and long visits 
to her French home at Cap Martin. It was not, as 
I have said, until more than twenty years after Sedan 
that the Government of the Republic granted her 
a permanent domicile in France. Needless to say 
that she has scrupulously fulfilled the obligation 
imposed upon her of non-participation in the " mani- 
festations " which have been, and until 19 14 were, 
made in favour of a restoration of the Imperial line, 
now, and for many years, solely represented by 
Prince Napoleon, whose father was a first cousin 
of Napoleon III. The Bonapartist Pretender is 
a discreet man; talented, but not ebullient. It is 
no secret that he will be the Empress's principal 
heir. Of her fortune nothing whatever is known. 
Even Monsignor Goddard, as he told me shortly 
before his death, had no inkling of it. Amusing 
canards crop up at intervals — e.g. the announcement 
of the defunct " Tribune " that the Empress had 
left all her " immense wealth " — stated to amount 
to ;^ 6,000,000 ( !) — to the " Jesuits." What is quite 
likely is that the Pretender will one day have an 
English home at Farnborough Hill. That is only 
natural. 

The Empress, as I have indicated, has long ceased 
to be an " exile " in any sense of the word. She is 
happy in her Hampshire home, with friends and 
relatives coming periodically from France and Spain 
to cheer her; — sadly happy in the contemplation 
of precious souvenirs of the husband and the son 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 113 

whom she has lost. All the remembrances of the 
past which surrounded her at " Camden " until 1880 
are to be found at Farnborough Hill. 

Let us now hear M. Lucien Alphonse Daudet.* 



In her cabinet de travail at Farnborough Hill the 
statue of the Prince Imperial, by Carpeaux, dominates 
everything else. Elsewhere may be seen Cannon's 
posthumous portrait of the " little Prince "; Protais 
has fixed the horror of the intrepid young hero's 
last moments by the Blood River; and near the 
fireplace, in a sort of library, at the foot of a large 
photograph of " Napoleon Quatre," there is always 
a wreath of roses or chrysanthemums, according to 
the season. The mother's thoughts are never absent 
from her son ; he smiles upon her wherever she may 
be. In the great gallery which leads to so many 
rooms — the salon d'honneur, the salon des princesses, 
the salon des dames and the salon de Greuze — are 
visible some of Winterhalter's triumphs : the 
Empress, seated, in red velvet, holding the infant 
Prince, in his white robe, brightened by the Grand 
Ordre Imperial : the Empress again, curiously coiffee, 
the profile hardly distinguishable, yet, on dit, her 
Majesty's favourite portrait of herself. Here also 
may be seen and admired the same painter's portraits 
of those two beautiful women, the Duchesse d'Albe 
(the Empress's sister) and the Duchesse de Mouchy, 

* Summarised, by the author's permission, from M. Daudet's 
remarkable work, "L'Imperatrice Eugenie." Paris: Arthur 
Fayard. 



114 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

nee Princesse Murat, whom we must still venture 
to place quite in the forefront of the Empress's 
greatest friends, in which category was the regretted 
Madame de Arcos. There are other portraits of 
the Prince by Winterhalter and D'Yvon; a masterly 
fragment, by Lefevre, showing the passing of the 
child from infancy to adolescence; and all the 
members of the " Great " Emperor's family live, 
at Farnborough Hill, on the canvases of Gerard, 
Riesener and Lefevre. At the entrance the 
" official " bust of Napoleon I. faces that of 
Napoleon HI. 

If we would fathom as nearly as possible the 
nuances of her complex nature, we must not regard 
the Empress as the heroine of beauty of the Second 
Empire, with golden ringlets, blue eyes and her 
proverbial charm; we must revert to her instinct, so 
slightly feminine, perpetually battling with her 
womanly character, her womanly esprit, her womanly 
heart, dominating them or being dominated by them 
according to circumstances, but always influencing 
and generally conquering them. 

When the first intoxication of happiness had passed 
from the life of this young woman, eager for the open 
air and space, loving hunting, horses, gallops across 
country, all that makes the cheeks glow and hardens 
the body; accustomed, after her sister's marriage 
to the Due d'Albe, to spend days of family intimacy 
at the palace of Leiria, endless days of gossip about 
everything and nothing, those Spanish " tertulias " 
which are the sweet reward of affection ; — after all this, 
imagine what the brusque change meant to her when 
she came to live in the old chateau of the French kings, 
uninhabited since the flight of Louis Philippe, that 




TiiF, Emi'Kkss Krci'.MK 

.•;/?<■;• t/u- /portrait by \]'intcrhalte> 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 115 

chateau with its countless corridors, secret staircases, 
immense salons and state rooms; — imagine, above 
all, the permanent cooping-up, the lack of liberty, 
the moral solitude, aggravated by the presence of some 
" Dame," some ennuyeuse lady-in-waiting. If, at 
that period, the Empress hacl been unable to conjure 
up the soul of her childhood and of her youth; if 
she had not resigned herself to a life unrelieved by 
any outward distractions, she would doubtless have 
rebelled against the existence created for her by her 
new grandeurs. 

How deadly dull in their monotony are those Royal 
journeys which must be made throughout the year ! 
For others every day in our travels brings us a new 
sensation; for sovereigns every journey is like the 
other. Their public, their official, life only is subject 
to variations; their private life has scarcely any 
family intimacy, even in modern Courts. (Queen 
Victoria's children had not the right to enter her 
room without being announced.) " Happy as a 
King ! " one of them said one day in my hearing, 
in a weary, despairing voice : "A King makes me 
think of some starving man, seated at a Gargantuan 
banquet, who, at the moment he is about to satisfy the 
pangs of hunger, is told that one of the plats — he 
knows not which — is poisoned." 

With rare exceptions, the Empress, after her daily 
drive, returned to the Tuileries before nightfall. 
Alone, without any "dame," or even a " reader," in 
one of her rooms in which she had gathered together 
her most cherished souvenirs she made her tea, while 
a despotic monkey awaited its usual cup of milk. 

Sometimes, gazing from the hotel window at the 
town stretched along the river, her memory takes 



ii6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

her back to this same Paris, where the Emperor, her 
son and she herself were outraged; she sees the wild 
dances and the perspiring figures, and hears the 
drunken songs one warm September morning, and 
recalls those who the day before were her subjects 
now become in a few hours her shouting enemies, 
her insulters, ready to kill her. Then, without a 
Word, she lowers the blind. She departs, without 
sterile regrets, but perhaps with a dolorous thought, 
" They have never known." 

The Empress can gaze upon these things and these 
places without apparent regret, because she has been 
able to dissociate them from her personality. She 
looks upon them again as vestiges of an anterior 
existence, as in another planet, not as traces, for ever 
effaced, of her actual life. 



II 

The detachment from everything which belonged 
to her made the Empress part with Arenenberg many 
years ago. Not wishing that, later. Queen Hortense's 
home should become a sanatorium or some pension 
a prix fixes, the Empress selected some pieces of 
furniture which recalled the quiet hours she had 
passed in the chateau, ordered the remainder to be 
converted into a museum, and presented the family 
residence to the canton of Thurgovia, stipulating 
for the establishment of a school of arts and trades. 
Such furniture and other objects retained by her 
which she thought would interest the French she 
sent as gifts to the Chateau of La Malmaison, whose 
distinguished custodian, M. Jean Aj albert, gratefully 
received them. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 117 

Although, for herself, the Empress has renounced 
everything, she is intransigeante and full of decision 
immediately there is a question of the principle 
she represents. She has consented to be no longer 
" Empress," but as the widow of the Emperor she 
is a " Sovereign." When she offered to give her 
estate of the Faro to the town of Marseilles, in 
order to transform it into a hospital, the Municipality 
proposed to designate the gift as one made by the 
" Widow Bonaparte." Upon learning of this inten- 
tion the Empress instructed her representative 
to inform the Municipality that she would present 
them with the Faro on the sole condition that 
they recorded the gift as from " S. M. I'lmperatrice 
Eugenie, veuve de S. M. Napoleon HI., Empereur 
des Fran9ais." This the Municipality agreed 
to do. 

Generous herself, she will not accept the generosity 
of others. She knows how to pity better than any 
other woman. She heals wounds, she soothes 
troubles ; but she keeps her own wounds and troubles 
to herself. To complain of them would be a 
horror to her. She pities others, but to be herself 
the object of pity is wounding to her. Her soul 
is the veiled Clarissa behind the iron bars. From day 
to day she becomes the superioress of an unknown 
Order, whose rule she fixes, following it in all 
its severity herself. From one renunciation after 
another she has discovered perfect resignation. 
Such resignation one must have who enters while 
living into the neant without noise, without 
ostentation, without any of those tragedies which 
still satisfy pride, when one has been everything 
and no longer wishes to be anything. This resigna- 



ii8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

tion shows itself even in petty details which, to 
observant eyes, suffice to explain the inexplicable. 
Excepting those things which came to her in the 
years of her power very few of her personal objects 
are marked with her monogram or engraved with 
her crown. Looking at the door of her automobile 
or at one of her travelling bags one would think that 
she wishes to be forgotten by herself even more 
than by others. This renunciation is due to self- 
control, and she often declares that not to possess 
it would be a proof of madness. This astonishing 
doubling of her personality, which permits her to 
see with apparent indifference the adornments of 
her past amazes many people : there are nobilities 
of the soul difficult to imagine. " How," it is 
sometimes asked, " can the Empress bear to look, 
from a window of her hotel, upon Paris and the 
garden in which not a vestige of her burned palace 
exists ? Where does she get the strength to enable her 
to stroll among the geraniums and the dahlias 
which cover the stones of St Cloud, and to re-visit 
Compiegne, where what was her bedroom is now 
a banal museum, shown to the public by a guide ? " 

The Empress can return to these things and these 
places without apparent pain because she has been 
able to dissociate them from her personality past 
and present. She regards them as vestiges of an 
anterior life, in another planet, not like the traces, 
effaced for ever, of her actual life. 

She seldom gesticulates. When she is speaking, 
and especially when she is questioning a person, 
she often crosses her arms. Should she be particularly 
interested when listening she will lean slightly 
forward and place her joined hands behind her 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 119 

back. Her face reveals the interest she takes, or 
does not take, in what she is being told. She 
seems to anticipate what is coming next. If she 
is being bored by banalities her indifference displays 
itself rather amusingly : she plays with her six gold 
rings, examines them attentively, takes them off, then 
puts them on again; ejaculating at intervals a vague 
distrait, distant " Ah ! " And her voice, rather 
broken, rises in tones breves et chantantes comme 
celles d'un harmonica. 

The Empress has a horror, a terror rather, of 
what she calls " les scenes." She has witnessed 
the flow of so many tears of devotion, and has 
so often raised from their genuflexions those who 
have prostrated themselves at her feet only to strike 
her more surely, that she knows their real value. 
Her ears are always ringing with the oath of a 
Trochu, " on the honour of a Breton, a Catholic 
and a soldier," swearing to serve her until death. 
A few minutes sufficed for him to perjure himself. 
And there were others, less vile perhaps, but scarcely 
braver. Tears often have the effect upon her of 
a comedy, an easy means of touching and saddening 
her. That she has confidence in individuals is 
certain, but she knows better than anyone to what 
point human nature can be weak and cowardly. 
She does not say so openly because she does not wish 
to deprive those surrounding her of their courage 
and happiness. 

The Empress's one and only enemy is cowardice. 
Her tone becomes grave, almost violent, when she 
speaks of it and of those who obey its dictates. 
" Le lache ! Les laches ! " It is not when she 
is personally concerned that the Empress suffers 



I20 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

and revolts : she would have too much to do. She 
has suffered all the cowardices, all the injustices, 
from the great ones recorded in history down to 
the little ones which are ignored, those Hating from 
forty-five years ago. 

She has been often treated as if she no longer 
belonged to this world. It has been said that the 
Empress hates cowards and cowardice. That, 
however, is not exact. It can be safely said that 
the time has come when she hates nothing and no one. 
She has pardoned; in that she has done well, even 
if in according her pardon her instinct was stronger 
than her will. But she has still the plus beau 
role, for her first enemies, the real ones, those who 
were most furious against her and hers, are all 
(dead, and she has survived them. The duration 
of her life is a kind of triumph. Despite her 
virile soul, however, she is a woman, and sometimes 
her nerves dominate her nature. Despite her 
renunciation and her mask of indifference, and almost 
of serenity, she has been seen to weep when reading 
something written against her. It is not anger which 
has caused these tears; calumnies mean very little 
to her; she weeps because of her powerlessness. 
How can she expect that certain lies that some 
have not hesitated to tell about her can be easily denied 
by a mere word ? How could she prove the truth, 
when she has sworn to remain silent for ever, that she 
has not written any memoirs, that she will never 
write any, that she will never utter a word, never put 
on paper a word capable of confounding or of 
compromising her accusers? She would not over- 
whelm the dead, and her dignity prevents her from 
raising polemics around her name. Eternity con- 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 121 

tains a sufficient future to judge her and to avenge 
her sooner or later. 



Ill 

Sometimes her habitual smile changes into a little 
tragic laugh, expressing all she has seen, the unhappi- 
ness caused her by Destiny and that which men 
have tried to bring about. Despite the dazzle and 
warmth of the South and her cruises in the Thistle 
in quest of the deepest sea, the Empress's real 
existence is in England amidst the green fields, 
for she recognises in it the only country in which 
throneless sovereigns can live with dignity. Pro- 
foundly feminine is that objectless nervousness which 
on some days takes possession of her, agitates her, 
makes her feverish and impels her to take an unusually 
long auto drive, during which she exhausts herself as 
much as possible, seeking in bodily fatigue repose 
for her perturbed soul. She talks, becomes animated, 
even laughs. Suddenly, without transition, without 
any apparent reason, wherever she may happen 
to be, in a carriage or in the train, she begins 
a story of some moment when she has been unhappiest. 
Her complaint is hastily suppressed; a little 
gesture chases away the vision which she has seen. 
The Scottish mists have made her susceptible to 
the most inexplicable supernatural fancies, in which 
she is so deeply interested. Those who do not 
know her regard the Empress, being Spanish, as 
a fanatic. Others represent her as being surrounded 
by " chaplains " (fantastical reminiscences of old 
comic operas) and living in the midst of the practices 
of a religion at once narrow and superstitious. 



122 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

But those who can speak of her with knowledge assert 
that no one has broader religious views than the 
Empress. She does not impose her ideal upon 
anyone, but, as in all other matters, leaves all to 
do as they like and believe what they like. Modera- 
tion is one of the aspects of her soul. She never 
asks if you have read Baruch. One proof of this 
will suffice. Two or three years ago she authorised 
one of her intimate friends to collaborate in a news- 
paper not at all suspected of ultramontane opinions : 
such is her great respect for the liberty of all. 
Pious she certainly is, but she is not a " devote," nor 
does she ever talk about her religion. 

It is her incessant craving for activity rather 
than a vague nostalgic love for unknown countries 
that led her every year to embark on her yacht or 
on a steamer. She is never under an illusion of 
happiness except when she feels herself free under 
the sky and a prisoner at sea, the roughness of which 
never has any effect upon her. There is no part 
of the Mediterranean with which her travelling humour 
has not made her acquainted : the coasts of Italy, 
Greece, Africa and Asia Minor — she knows them 
all; she was always wanting to go farther and still 
farther, so insatiable was her demand for space and 
especially for movement. The two countries of 
which she has the most haunting memories, and 
about which she talks oftenest, are Egypt (to which 
she returned between seven and eight years ago, 
for the first time since 1869, when she inaugurated the 
opening of the Suez Canal — only eight months 
before the great war) and the Indies, of which 
she has seen only the fringe, and hopes to visit them 
some day ! 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 123 

When she is not on her travels she cannot live 
unoccupied. She would not be a Sovereign if she 
were not much given to building. She amuses 
herself by constructing here and there, by trans- 
forming what she considers incomplete in one or 
other of her homes. If she did not assiduously watch 
the building works which she orders to be carried out 
they would not interest her. Nothing is left to 
chance. She occupies herself with everything, even 
the slightest details, and attaches as much importance 
to the harmony of a building as to the shape of a 
door, the exact place for a piece of furniture, the 
colour of a carpet. When a new idea occurs to 
her it must be executed immediately. She explains 
and discusses everything, is eager to see the work 
begun, asks the advice of this one and that one, 
remains standing for hours together, is untiring, holds 
out against fatigue longer than anyone, and will 
not leave the place until she is satisfied with what is 
being done. 

Sometimes the idea occurs to her to open up a new 
view in the park, and she orders trees to be felled and 
others to be stripped of their branches. In the 
morning she strolls into the woods to note the change 
of scene, either approving with a smile what has 
been done, or indicating with her cane an alteration. 
If the weather keeps her indoors she arranges her 
papers, classifying them methodically, or looks over 
the well-stocked library with the intention of getting 
the books catalogued. Here she allows someone 
to help her, but works continually herself, for 
exercise, no matter of what kind, is indispensable. 

Farnborough Hill now has its Napoleonic museum, 
one of the Empress's latest achievements. She 



124 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

watched over its formation with meticulous care, 
the late M. Pietri aiding in the work. M. Pietri 
saw everything, but said little. The museum stands 
behind the trees, and is covered with ivy. It is 
lighted from the top. An aromatic odour floats 
in the warm air of this large salle, which is not only 
a museum of sovereigns, but a museum of souvenirs. 
Here are collected all the precious objects which 
have come to the Empress through the Bonaparte 
family. In the middle of a panel are seen the 
legendary uniform of the grenadiers of the Guard, 
the grey overcoat and the little hat, a black mantle 
and the high boots. Close by are two masks with 
closed eyes : one of the father who died at St 
Helena, the other of the son (Napoleon II.) who 
died at Schonbrunn. One mask is emaciated; that 
of the King of Rome recalls the lineaments of 
King Alfonso XIII. The objects here grouped 
have not suffered at the hand of Time; all are in 
perfect condition. The visitor sees the pearl sword, 
the neo- Greek table services, the large wash-hand 
basin which Napoleon I. took with him through 
his campaigns; the purple collar sprinkled with 
bees (resembling somewhat the black mantle of the 
Saint-Esprit), and the white robe with the long 
wheat ears in tarnished gilt worn by the Empress 
Josephine when she sat to Lefevre for her portrait; 
Josephine's court mantles in sapphire violet, her gauze 
robe and the lace made for her. 

Having completed this section of the museum the 
Empress, no longer head of the family, but still 
widowed wife and mother, arranged with pious care 
all that which for France is already historic, but 
which for herself represents the grandeurs and the 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 125 

sorrows of her life. She has had the self-possession 
to treat as majestic relics all the objects which are 
dearer to her than those belonging to herself, for 
they were those of the Emperor and the Prince 
Imperial. In their glass cases are the uniforms of 
Napoleon III., his general's hat, his caps (these 
recalling Yvon's portrait of the Emperor), his state 
saddle with its chased holsters and eagles. In 
the centre of the salle, almost hidden by the grey 
cloths which preserve them, are the gala and demi- 
gala carriages, the white satin of which is faded 
and the varnish peeling off, the sumptuous hammer- 
cloths and the heraldic bearings. Ranged apart 
from all these are Pieri's pistol and the dagger 
of the Opera Comique conspiracy. 

In the museum chapel are saddening and tragic 
ex-votos. First among these is to be noted the cradle 
— not the " official " one, orfevre by Froment- 
Maurice, given by the city of Paris when the Prince 
Imperial was born, and presented in later years 
by the Empress to the Carnavalet Museum. No, 
this is a baby's simple cradle. There are the infant's 
blue and white shoes and his robes, among them 
the tartan of a little Scotsman; and we see the boy's 
first real dress, the dark green habit de chasse and 
the gold-laced hat, the " lampion." Nothing is 
sadder than the sous-lieutenant's uniform which 
the Prince wore when he left for the war at the end 
of July, 1870. By the side of it is a black book, 
with these words written on the first page in ink now 
discoloured : " Chaque fois que tu le liras ce sera une 
pensee pour ta mere." 

Here, too, are the English uniforms worn by the 
Prince at Woolwich and later, until he left for 



126 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Zululand. Among these various uniforms is the 
conscription number drawn in Paris on behalf of 
the Prince when he came of age and was registered 
by the military authorities as a " citizen " liable to 
serve with the colours ! There are also his two 
French military dolmans, quite new and of course 
never worn. 

In a large ebony armoire is a portrait of the Prince. 
We will draw a veil over what is behind its closed 
doors. 

In all circumstances the Empress's vitality shows 
itself. Every night she retires at the same hour, 
no matter where she is. She follows her programme 
for resisting old age. Even when she has a cold, or 
feels languid, she insists upon going out, even in 
cold or foggy weather, despite the advice, even the 
prayers, of those around her.* Sometimes, after a 
sleepless night, she has gone out and walked for 
a couple of hours, and she has been seen in an open 
carriage when rain was falling. She trusts in the 
open air as the best preservative of her health. 
It is useless to attempt to dissuade her from committing 
these imprudences. Yet that body which she some- 
times treats so severely clings to life, loves life, 
loves the warmth of a summer day and the gleam of 
sunshine which falls upon the waves. 

* In January, 191 3, however, as detailed later, when she had 
a bad cold, her doctor insisted upon her remaining in the 
house for several days, and she was thus prevented from • 
attending- the annual service for the Emperor on the 9th. 
And in 1914 she left for Paris before January 9. — E.L. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 127 

IV 

Every post brings to Farnborough Hill and to 
Villa Cyrnos an avalanche of appeals for assistance, 
begging letters. It is the sole work of one person 
to examine this correspondence before submitting 
it to the Empress, who herself verifies the accuracy 
of the statements. These letters come from all 
parts of the world. Some are written by naifs who 
have taken seriously the absurd and untruthful 
statements which they have read in the newspapers 
concerning some imaginary scheme or other said 
to be contemplated by the Empress. Among the 
appeals there is occasionally one requesting the " Em- 
press of the French " to procure the applicant a bureau 
de tabac ! There are, it seems, after forty-five years, 
people who believe the Imperial lady can grant 
them a Governmental favour, as if she were still 
powerful. But what shall be said of the " shameful 
rich " who appeal to the Empress ? 

Like all generous people, the Empress knows 
the value of money. She loathes useless squander- 
ings, money spent without anyone being the better 
for it. While she conceals her liberal almsgiving, 
she often secretly meditates over the satisfaction 
or pleasure which she has given to one person 
or another. 

In her home, from morning till night, she shows 
in a hundred ways her consideration for others. 
If a person accompanies her on her walks the Empress 
will not allow him or her to carry her cloak or her 
sunshade. Over-zealous people irritate her. Some- 
times she has hurriedly left the tea-table when 
she smilingly remembered that in the morning one 



128 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of the guests had remarked that it was very trying 
to remain in the house for a whole hour without 
smoking. She objects to people speaking in her 
presence of the " domestics," and prefers the phrase 
the " serviteurs." In less famous houses such con- 
sideration for our " inferiors " is not invariably 
shown. The Imperial servants at Farnborough Hill 
and at Villa Cyrnos have an existence of their 
own. The Empress will not allow them to be regarded 
as machines, which are stopped directly their work is 
finished. 

If someone speaks ill-naturedly of an absent 
person the Empress will often pretend not to have 
heard what was said, and her silence, which turns 
the conversation into another channel, prevents 
any further captious remarks. She displays great 
tact in preventing jealousy among her entourage. 
Thus there are never found in her circle those hatreds, 
rivalries, mediocre conflicts and lamentable intrigues 
which are sometimes observable alike in great and 
small courts. 

It is quite exceptional for her to be angry with 
anyone. She generalises, or proceeds by allusions, 
not mentioning names. Her gratitude is less con- 
cealed. " Dates " are her aversion. She flies from 
anniversaries and does not like them recalled. You 
will earn her thanks by forgetting them all — even 
the day of her fete. But needless to say she 
remembers the 9th of January and the ist of June — 
the death-days of her husband and her son. 

The Empress heartily despises locks of hair, 
whether intact or encased in jewellery; teeth mounted 
in rings; old gloves, faded and mouldering in a 
box; ashes of the dead heaped together at the 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 129 

bottom of a dusty urn, idolatrie macabre, which 
weakens our memory of the dead by venerating 
their remains. Those who know her best credit 
the Empress with the most beautiful of all human 
endowments, nobility of heart. 

One morning, as she was arranging her papers 
and cutting out extracts from them, she came across 
an old newspaper article so infamous, so odious, 
that her hand trembled and the point of her scissors 
made one of her fingers bleed. I remember that 
drop of blood. 

Every description of literature interests the Em- 
press, who reads most books that she considers 
important. She prefers novels to poetry, and likes 
best those of Anatole France and Pierre Loti. 
She has been heard to say that the first-mentioned 
writes " le plus beau fran^ais." Of late years she 
has given most attention to memoirs and historical 
works. For the latter she always had a craving, 
believing that from them she could best learn her 
regal duties. In her library are the works of Albert 
Vandal, Henri Houssaye, Frederic Masson, Comte 
d'Haussonville, Gabriel Hanotaux and Pierre Nolhac, 
to mention only a select few. 

Scattered about her cabinet de travail are several 
small tables, on which may be seen books on 
philosophy, science and medicine. Schopenhauer is 
not one of her favourites. All scientific works, 
especially those on medicine, arouse her curiosity. 
She regularly follows the progress of therapeutics 
in the medical reviews, and discusses them with 
those doctors whom from time to time she meets. 
She wants to know the why and wherefore of all these 
matters. 



130 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

In general literature she does not shirk the perusal 
of books which are not particularly laudatory of her, 
or of those whose mediocrity would make less patient 
readers shun them. If she can find in any volume 
something, however trivial, of which she was previously 
ignorant, she is satisfied. She not only reads books, 
but studies them. 

The supernatural, which sometimes claims her 
attention to a certain extent, never really occupies her 
mind. In history, as in actual life, she looks only 
for certainties and light. Hypotheses and mysteries, 
so far from taking her imagination captive, (do not 
even amuse her. All that has been written about 
the Man in the Iron Mask, the poisoning of 
" Madame," sister-in-law of Louis XIV., and the 
death of the Empress Josephine, all the riddles 
propounded by a Sphinx, ignorant of an QEdipus, 
irritate her. Even " the Louis XVII. question," 
into which, despite her protests, attempts were made 
to draw her, and the pretended escape of the Dauphin 
— " secrets " too well preserved for a century — 
occupy her mind only momentarily and have the 
effect of making her rise superior to the absurdity 
of such suppositions. 

In the domain of history, in which she finds proofs 
that many revolutions were similar to preceding 
ones, there is a figure which always haunts her — 
Marie Antoinette. Books upon that Queen, especially 
those of M. Le Notre, invariably and permanently 
move the Empress. Many have discerned in some 
of the portraits of the Queen a resemblance to the 
Empress. 

Her lively imagination makes her fancy that 
she herself has witnessed the scenes which she has 




'R ^' 




TiiK Kmi'kess Eugkme in the grounds of 
II EK \iLi.A AT Cat Martin 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 131 

either read in books or which have been related 
to her. This imaginative faculty is the most pessi- 
mistic part of her mind, and no efforts of hers can 
master it. She has an extraordinary memory, which 
never fails her, for events and dates. What a host 
of memories she can evoke in an hour ! How many 
figures she can summon before her! She sees 
Rachel on the stage threatening Ristori; the 
Empress of Austria walking in the moonlight along one 
of the paths at Cap Martin and saying : " Je 
voudrais mourir d'un tout petit coup au coeur par 
ou s'envolerait mon ame." Unlike most women 
of her age, the Empress does not shrink from 
recalling the past. 

Her eloquence is surprising. She can move her 
hearers to tears one moment and make them laugh the 
next. Her voice changes from a murmur to a loud 
outburst with a rapidity rather startling to those 
who do not know her well. Sometimes she thinks 
aloud and then any auditor suffices, no matter whom. 
It is in her conversation, in her facility for spreading 
herself over a topic, that her southern origin is 
seen. Although pretending to dislike being deafened 
by words, on the ground that she cannot on the 
spur of the moment find an appropriate reply to what 
someone has said, she is really as willing to listen as 
to speak. 

Her " esprit " — in the highest and most amusing 
sense of the word — is made up of a combination of 
rapid comprehension and a remarkable faculty of 
observation, which, did her dignity permit, would 



132 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

enable her to display her great power of imitation. 
Thus she does not appear to belong to a past age. 
Thanks to her natural quickness of perception she 
can be drawn into a gaiety which gives her voice a 
youthful sound while it lights up her features. 
Those who have sometimes found trifling mis- 
spellings of words in her letters seem to have 
forgotten that in her youthful days orthography was 
not the strong point at the primary school. We may 
wish that her critics were endowed with her personal 
style, her concise phrases, her legible handwriting, 
which, although she entered upon her ninetieth year 
on the 5th of May, 19 15, is almost as firm as ever. 

It was with no banal royal condescension, no 
desire to seek a topic for conversation, that she ques- 
tioned poor Cody concerning aerial navigation, that 
she seeks from some savant or other an explanation 
of, let us say, wireless telegraphy, or from an 
engineer information about an electrical battery; 
her only object is to get an accurate knowledge of 
these mysteries. Similarly she will question people 
respecting a person whom she does not know or 
an interesting sight which everybody is talking about 
and which she will never see. Thus, despite her 
age and her retired life, the Empress is au courant 
of everything, and is better informed than most 
people of the progress of science and of the war. 

She keeps her disillusions and her anger to herself, 
so that it is difficult for those ignorant of the nuances 
of her physiognomy to know whether she is pleased 
or displeased, whether she approves or disapproves 
of what she hears or sees. Her disapproval is 
expressed only by silence and utter indifference. 
If someone has offended her she will not utter a word. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 133 

The unfortunate person is suppressed by a look; 
she seems not to see the offender, who gathers 
the impression that he or she has become invisible, 
or no longer exists ! But her anger is soon over : 
it vanishes at the utterance of a word or two at the 
right moment. 

A longer period of disfavour results when several 
little annoyances are repeated and have wounded 
the Empress. But this is quite exceptional and 
when it happens it is not her fault. Deceptive and 
fantastic natures, agreeable but dangerous, stupefy 
her. Despite her moral solitude and her restricted 
entourage she is very sociable. Everybody plays 
a part in her thoughts. With all her strength she 
combats misanthropy. She will not allow anyone 
to lead the life of a savage. She holds rather 
that one must take the opinion of the world into 
account. She likes to be surrounded by people 
and to be in the movement. Life being more ardent 
in the young than in the old she has a preference for 
the former, proof of which is to be found in the 
simple aspect of those who gather round her at 
Farnborough Hill and, before the war, at Cap 
Martin. 

Many " Majesties " must be imagined with a 
crown on their head and a sceptre in hand in order 
to realise their prestige. The Empress can easily 
do without these emblems. Her empire is with her 
wherever she may be. Like those favoured ecclesias- 
tics who have their " personal Oratory " and can 
celebrate service wherever they please, the Empress 
transforms into a court the perfumed alleys of Villa 
Cyrnos, the sinuous green paths of the park at 
Farnborough Hill, the bridge of a yacht, even the 



134 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

salon of an hotel, not so much by a complicated 
protocol as by the pathetic Hignity which radiates 
from her. After forty-five years she remains a 
" Majesty," because the majesty of her person 
places such a distance between her and others that 
no one forgets it for a moment. The only time 
during the day that she performs a real act of 
sovereignty is when she says good-night to those 
around her. With one inclination of the head she 
acknowledges the profound salutation of all, and with 
this simple movement, rapid and marvellously effective, 
she gives to each person with a different nuance 
a ceremonious smile or a more familiar glance, 
precious as a baise-main. By the time people have 
looked up the Empress has vanished. In the distance 
they see her going up the stairs. An imperceptible 
trace of iris floats in the air. The lights are put out. 

LuciEN Alphonse Daudet. 



CHAPTER XII 

A FRENCH LADY'S " APPRECIATION " 

I SHOULD like to print here Madame Henriette 
L'Huillier's extremely interesting essay (in large part 
areviewof my"The Empress Eugenie: 1870 — 1910"), 
which appeared in the " Mount Angel Magazine," 
published in Oregon by the Benedictine Fathers : 

While looking over some books on history at the 
Portland Public Library, U.S.A. (historical research 
has always been a hobby of mine), I happened to dis- 
cover a remarkable work on the Empress Eugenie, by 
Edward Legge. Nothing could arouse my interest 
to a higher degree, as the Empress is intimately 
associated with some of my childhood's reminiscences. 

On a clear cold 'day in January, 1853, I saw her 
triumphal progress from the Tuileries to the ancient 
Notre Dame Cathedral, where the great bells an- 
nounced her wedding to Napoleon III. in thunderous 
accents. Again, three years later, I listened to the dull 
roar of Mont Valerien's cannons, celebrating the 
birth of the Prince Imperial, the much expected 
heir of the dynasty. 

Who could help admiring her glorious beauty, 
her regal yet graceful and genial bearing as she 
passed through the streets of Paris, leaving friendli- 
ness and love in her wake ! Once she visited a 
poor district in the city, to act as godmother to 
135 



136 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

an historical bell. This bell had been conquered at 
the famous beleaguered city of Sebastopol, where 
countless deeds of heroism had been achieved by the 
valiant French troops. 

How proud was the worthy Pere Blondeau to have 
been successful in securing that memorial of victory 
for his humble church ! How gratified was he to 
see his parish honoured by the exalted presence 
of his noble visitors ! Several dames d'honneur 
(court ladies) of the Empress were personal acquaint- 
ances of mine. All were enthusiastic admirers of 
their brilliant Sovereign. 

In 1867, when so many rulers of the world, as the 
Sultan of Turkey, the Tsar of Russia, the King 
of Prussia, with the Count Bismarck, came to visit 
the brilliant Paris Exhibition; when, in honour of 
such lordly guests, countless festivals were held, 
each one of greater magnificence, where the Empress 
Eugenie shone like a matchless star in a superb 
diadem — who could have augured the disasters of 
that " Ann^e terrible," 1870? 

Over forty-five years have come and gone. The 
beautiful wife of Napoleon III., the happy mother 
of the " Petit Prince," the proud possessor of a 
mighty crown, has lost husband, son, empire — lives 
alone in a dream of memories. Her words are a sad 
but salutary reminder of the frailty of earthly goods : 

I am left alone, the sole remnant of a shipwreck; 
which proves how fragile and vain are the grandeurs 
of this wotld. I cannot even die; and God, in his 
infinite mercy, will give me a hundred years of life." 
England, so rigorous and merciless towards Napoleon 
I., was sympathetic and propitious to the Nephew and 
his family. 



A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 137 

As soon as the news of the catastrophe of Sedan 
reached Paris, a tremendous excitement swayed that 
city. The Empress-Regent was advised to leave 
France at once, to avoid possible danger from the 
rabble's infuriated acts. Her heart bleeding for the 
sorrows of her adopted country, grievously alarmed 
about the fate of her husband and son, she consented 
to cross the Channel, in order that her two beloved 
ones might join her in England, where a turn of the 
tide could be awaited. A day came when they found 
themselves thus once more reunited, but with little 
hope of ever being restored to their throne again. 
Upon their arrival in England, Queen Victoria 
extended a gracious and hearty welcome to them, 
and, once more, they were safe and sound. The 
Emperor, being passionately fond of his son, devoted 
himself exclusively to the education of the fifteen- 
year-old prince. 

Camden Place, Chislehurst, was a rather gloomy 
contrast to the gay and bright Tuileries, but even 
there the Imperial family could have tasted the 
joys of happiness had not Napoleon's health been 
visibly on the. decline. Less than two years after 
his return from his captivity at Wilhelmshohe, the 
unfortunate Emperor was laid to rest. 

The body of the great Napoleon's nephew was 
placed in a sumptuous sarcophagus, presented by 
Queen Victoria, and taken to St Mary's Church, where 
the Rev. Isaac Goddard (later Monsignor Goddard) 
received it with great pomp. 

What words can picture the dreadful anguish of the 
two survivors ! Never since was the august widow 

o 

seen without the sombre veil of mourning. 

Six years later, in June, 1879, the unfortunate 



138 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Prince Imperial died fighting for England in 
South Africa, thus nobly paying his debt for the 
hospitality his family had found in the British 
kingdom. 

Riddled by the murderous assegais of Zulu 
warriors, his mangled body was found telling a tale 
of desperate odds. Far from his native land, but 
twenty-three years of age, the descendant of a great 
dynasty perished in the wilderness. Poor mother ! 
Her last hope withered, her only comfort ravished. 
. . . Nothing but utter solitude and two graves, side 
by side. 

In 1880 the Empress wished to purchase some 
land adjoining this same church, for the purpose 
of erecting thereon a mausoleum in memory of her 
illustrious dead. The property belonged to a 
wealthy zealous Protestant merchant. He refused 
point blank to sell any part of it for the purpose of 
enlarging St Mary's Church, or for the use of any 
other Catholic institution. This finally induced the 
Empress to leave Chislehurst. The estate of Farn- 
borough happening to be in the market at that time, 
she bought the same and moved there on September 30, 
1880. It embraces about three hundred acres. 
The mansion is a striking example of Early English 
architecture. A sixty-eight-acre park, shaded by 
many ancient trees, surrounds the impressive manor. 
As a whole, it is a typical vista of " Old England." 

A certain room of the house, called " Salle de Per," 
contains countless Napoleonic relics, constituting a 
unique family museum. A statue of the Prince 
Imperial, with his pet dog, adorns the conservatory. 
At the foot lie various grasses, gathered by the 
Empress in South Africa, when she made her sad 



A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 139 

pilgrimage to Zululand — the mute testimony of a 
love and sorrow beyond words ! 

The Empress is a great reader, eager to know 
and understand everything. On her desk one can see 
a book of J. K. Huysmans close to an up-to-date 
medical review. She pleases herself, says M. L. 
Daudet, and excels in regarding the past through 
the light of the present. Joris Karl Huysmans was 
a personal friend of mine. After his conversion he 
was received as a Benedictine Oblate and buried 
in the habit of the holy brotherhood at his death in 
Paris, May, 1909. According to the French custom, 
I assisted at the funeral in the Church of Notre Dame 
des Champs and walked behind the hearse to the 
Montparnasse cemetery. 

In 1888 the remains of the Emperor Napoleon III. 
and his son were removed from St Mary's Church 
at Chislehurst to St Michael's Church, erected by 
the Empress on the top of an eminence. To this 
church was added a Priory that became later an Abbey 
and has, since 1895, been attended by a Benedictine 
community now composed of some forty members, 
French and English, including " religieux de choeur 
et freres laic." 

The Rme. Pere Abbe, Dom F. Cabrol, elected 
Lord Abbot of St Michael on July 20, 1903, was born 
at Marseilles on December 11, 1855. Before 1903 
he was Prior of what was then the Priory of Farn- 
borough. Dom Cabrol is the author of several 
volumes of great value to students of ecclesiological 
and archaeological literature. Since the Benedictines 
have been at Farnborough they have completed, 
under Dom Cabrol's direction, a very important and 
valuable work, entitled : " Dictionnaire d'Archeologie 



I40 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Chretienne de Liturgie," characterised by the best 
traditions of the Benedictine school. 

At Farnborough Abbey the day's activities begin 
at four A.M. The seven canonical hours in the 
Catholic Breviary are recited during the day. 
Between the services the members of the community 
occupy themselves with intellectual work in the 
silence of their cells, specially devoting themselves 
to the study of archaeology, the Christian Liturgy and 
ecclesiastical history. When circumstances require it, 
the Benedictine monks, wherever they may be, under- 
take preaching and other pastoral work. 

By deed of gift, the Empress transferred the 
Church and Abbey of St Michael — the imperial 
mausoleum and its appurtenances — to the Benedictine 
Monks in perpetuity. Now, the noble Andalouse, 
the once so dazzling and envied French Sovereign, 
the exiled and sorrowful widow of Napoleon III., 
the mother of the Prince Imperial, lives only in the 
past : 

" I have lived — I have been. I do not want to be 
anything more, not even a memory. I am the past — 
one of those distant horizons, confused and lost, 
which the traveller, looking back, gazes at from the 
summit of a mountain, and which he forgets in 
the expectation of viewing the new scenes already 
outlined before him. I live, but I am no more : a 
shadow, a phantom, a grief which walks. . . . Between 
my past and my present not only fifty years inter- 
vene, but ten centuries ! I am a poor woman, who 
has lived long and suffered much. I am like one 
who, walking backwards, gazes towards the horizon 
which he has already passed. I have renounced 
the future. I live in my youth and in my past. And 



A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 141 

all the rest is shadow, deep shadow. I have no 
more to expect. Even my sad winter is finishing." 

After those solemn words of the once radiant 
Empress, we can but bow our heads in mute respect 
before this " grand adversity," and express our 
sincere gratitude to Mr Edward Legge for his 
authentic book on one of the most touching and 
striking personalities of French history, the Empress 
Eugenie. 

Henriette L'Huillier. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 

The Empress Eugenie has seen the most redoubt- 
able adversary of the Second Empire pass away, 
five years her junior. One can scarcely imagine 
that Henri Rochefort's appearance was unknown 
to the Empress; still, I have heard that she had 
never seen him until a few years before his death. 

The Empress is of such a forgiving-and-forgetting 
nature that she had doubtless pardoned the renowned 
journalist for all his rudenesses to herself and the 
dynasty. In a long conversation which I once had 
with M. Rochefort in Paris, I found him delight- 
fully frank and genial, brimful of humour. He 
received me in his shirt-sleeves, and told me (as I 
had seen for myself) that he wrote a " leader " every 
day for his paper, just as in the old times. Not long 
before his death, on July i, 19 13, he made an 
extraordinary volte-face, casting in his lot with the 
partisans of the Due d'Orleans, and even appearing 
on the platform with the " White Carnations," or 
" Camelots," who at one time caused the Royalist 
Pretender so much embarrassment. But we must 
remember that he came of an old Legitimist family, < 
and that he was by right the Marquis de Rochefort- 
LuQay. 

When we talk about the causes which led to the 
disintegration of the Second Empire we must take 

142 



ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 143 

into account the heavy blows dealt it by Rochefort's 
little scarlet-covered pamphlet, the " Lanterne," 
which did more harm to the regime than the most 
violent attacks by equally able but less virulent pens. 
Rochefort's methods as a pamphleteer were all the 
more effectual because they were besprinkled with 
jocose dicta. Frequently they were scabreux. 

These are extracts translated by me for this 
work from the more decorous numbers of the 
" Lanterne " : — 

(1868.) When, ten years ago, the Queen of England 
came to Paris to pay a solemn visit to the actual lodgers at 
the Tuileries, * the paid newspapers declared that Semiramis 
was a mere blanchisseuse de fin as compared to this great 
Queen. The journalist who allowed himself to criticise even 
the colour of her dress would have been sentenced to be 
shot several times running. ... If Queen Victoria visits the 
Empress Eugenie she is immense. If the Queen declines 
to visit the Empress she has taken leave of her senses. 
[So the subventioned journals said, according to Rochefort. ] 

A Spanish journalist has been sentenced to a year's imprison- 
ment for writing fulsomely about thin women. In this was 
seen an allusion to the embonpoint of the Queen of Spain, 
who considered the reference to be indirectly aimed at her. 
The Spanish journalist has been, however, better treated than 
I was, for he got only a year's imprisonment, while I had 
thirteen months' gaol for having offended the Empress by 
letting it be supposed that some European Sovereigns perhaps 
wore false hair. 

(September lo, 1868.) Napoleon III. is decidedly the Offen- 
bach of Emperors, not as chef d'orchestre, but as jettatore 
[a person with an " evil eye "]. 

It suffices for him to visit the bedside of a person who is 
ill to ensure the death of the sufferer that night. The Due de 
Morny died immediately after the Emperor had called to 
see him. Mocquard [the Emperor's secretary] no sooner 

* Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie were so designated. 



144 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

saw the hero of the Coup d'Etat enter the room in which he was 
lying very ill than he died, without making any revelations. 
The Spanish Government being in a bad way, Queen Isabella 
contrived to get an interview with her powerful neighbour 
[Napoleon III.], and immediately witnessed the overturn of 
her throne before even she had had time to embrace this 
providential man. 

A woman recently arrived in Paris escorted on one side by 
her husband and on the other by her amant. Well ! do 
you know who is the mother who, far from turning her head 
from this spectacle, entertained all three at her chateau at 
Pau? The Empress of the French. Such are the tableaux 
(vivants) that we are oifered by the heads (less and less 
crowned) of France and Spain. [The persons referred to 
were Queen Isabella and Marfori, the Royal "favourite."] 

The Empress, who seems to have assumed the Regency even 
during the lifetime of this poor Emperor^ has expressed a 
wish to see the streets of our principal towns named after 
men who have left noble examples for others to follow. 
I am of the same opinion as Madame la R^gente. At the 
same time I am surprised that we have neither a Rue Victor 
Hugo, a Rue Garibaldi, a Boulevard Baudin [an insurrectionist, 
shot by Louis Napoleon's troops when defending a barricade], 
nor a Square Gambetta, while we have a Rue Morny [the 
Emperor's half-brother], who has left such a brilliant example 
for us to follow; and a Boulevard du Prince Imperial, who, 
although twelve years and seven months old, has not shown 
us any samples of his handwriting. 

It will be seen by these few extracts from the 
" Lanterne " that Henri Rochefort, knowing his 
countrymen so well, obtained his effects by means of 
that ridicule which, as Voltaire says, " always comes 
off victorious " (" Le ridicule vient a bout de tout "), 
while Beaumarchais holds that "Le ridicule tue en 
France." How successful Rochefort was in his con- 
tinuous " chaffing " of the Emperor and Empress 
was admitted by that brilliant writer, the late M. Jules 
Claretie, who, in one of his charming weekly 



ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 145 

letters in the " Temps " (" La Vie a Paris"), said 
emphatically : " Rochefort overthrew the Empire." 
The " Lanterne," price forty centimes, first appeared 
in the latter part of May, 1868; No. 3 was published 
on June 15. In October of that year the " Diable 
a Quatre " (fifty centimes) was launched in a red 
cover similar to that of the " Lanterne." De Ville- 
messant, founder of the " Figaro," was one of the 
editors, and made it known that Rochefort was in no 
way associated with it ; in fact he was repudiated. 

In 1869 Rochefort and another noted member 
of the Corps Legislatif, Raspail, brought in a Bill 
providing for a new organisation of the Constitution. 
The Minister of the Interior having described it 
as " a silly measure," Rochefort said : " If I am 
ridiculous I shall never equal in that way the gentle- 
man who walked on the sands of Boulogne with 
an eagle on his shoulder and a bit of bacon in his 
hat." This little gibe, so characteristically Roche- 
fortian, highly tickled " the gentleman " in question 
when he read it in the privacy of his sanctum at the 
Tuileries. For all that, however, Rochefort was 
prosecuted in June, 1869, for complicity in the illegal 
introduction of the " Lanterne " into France (it 
had been published at Brussels), and was sentenced 
to three years' imprisonment, the payment of a 
fine of 10,000 francs (^400), and forfeiture of his 
rights as a citizen for three years. 

Released from prison on the fall of the Empire 
and chosen as a member of the Government of 
National Defence, Rochefort in 1871 took an active 
part in the Commune, and was one of many who 
were deported to the penal settlement of New 
Caledonia. In 1874 Rochefort and five of his friends 



146 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

escaped through the good offices of an Englishman, 
Captain David Law, who was paid ^400 for con- 
veying the six deportes to Australia. Captain 
Law's story of the event was this : " The ship had 
been cleared at the Custom House, and the pilot took 
us outside the port, ready to start at daybreak. 
I made some excuse to the pilot for not being able 
to leave at the fixed time. The Communists had 
not come aboard yet, and I had anchored, so as to 
pick them up in the night. That evening I gave 
orders that none of the crew were to remain on deck, 
so that all were sound asleep when the fugitives 
arrived. One of the Communists, named Bastien, 
had charge of the boat which was to bring them from 
the shore. I understood that Bastien was the owner 
of the boat; and on Friday, at two in the morning, 
the six Communists came aboard — namely, Henri 
Rochefort, Paschal Grousset, OUivier Pain, Jourde, 
Balliere and Bastien. Immediately they had climbed 
on deck the little boat was stove in and sunk. 
I led the new-comers to the stern cabin, and by the 
dim light at once recognised Henri Rochefort, 
whose photograph I happened to have in my cabin. 
I then placed them all in the store-room, where 
they remained until we were far out at sea. 
M. Balliere did not give me any money at Noumea, 
for the very good reason that he had none; and 
it was only on our arrival at Sydney that they 
received funds from France by telegraph. They 
assured me that it was Gambetta who helped them." ' 
One result of their escape was that the captain of 
the port, M. Gouet, lost his situation, and subsequently 
fell into the direst misery. M. Magnin, one of 
the members of the Government of National Defence 



ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 147 

of 1870, died in November, 19 10, leaving Rochefort 
the sole survivor of that government. 

Paris (and London when he was here for a con- 
siderable period in the eighties) could show no more 
striking figure than that of the amazing fighting 
journalist, author, pamphleteer and art expert. He 
was over six feet in height, neither actually stout 
nor thin, but finely proportioned, and when I met 
him as upright as a lath. He was Mephistophelian 
in appearance. His heavy military moustache and 
imperial (the goatee of the Americans) and his 
soldierly bearing suggested a Napoleonic Cent-Garde 
— as fine a regiment as our Life Guards. I had 
seen these splendid fellows at the Tuileries when, 
as a boy, I first went to Paris, with a " tenner " in 
my pocket on which I lived for a fortnight en prince, 
or so I thought at the time, the time "When all the 
world is young, lad, and every goose a swan." 
Three or four years later I saw them on the battle- 
field. Rochefort was bon diable. He did all the 
talking and enjoyed it. We stayed an hour or so, 
and then he said suddenly : " Well, I'm delighted 
to have seen you, my dear Millage, and your young 
friend. If he writes anything about me be sure 
I see it. He ought to live among us for a year or two 
— it would be the making of him." 

When next I saw him he was in exile in London, 
and living Regent's Park way. There was a 
French artist named Pilotel, who made a large income 
by drawing fashion pictures for the " Lady's Pictorial." 
An old friend, Henry Pottinger Stephens (the 
" Pot " Stephens of the " Sporting Times " and 
later of the "Daily Telegraph"), made me acquainted 
with the artist and I got to know him very well. 



148 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

I believe Pilotel had been a Communard in 1871. 
Between him and Rochefort there was the bitterest 
enmity. " Rochefort, that canaille ! " he would say, 
in his English-French. " He is a rank coward — 
everybody knows that. I will follow him all over 
Europe and denounce him. Canaille, Canaille, 
Canaille ! I spit upon him — like this. " One day 
the two met outside the Cafe Royal. There was 
a scrimmage and both were walked off to Vine 
Street police station. I think they were in custody 
only for a very short time, and that they did not go 
before the " beak " at Marlborough Street. Pilotel 
had " diggings " near Jermyn Street and Stephens 
told me that he had adorned the walls of his bed- 
sitting-room with as choice a group of young women 
" in the altogether " as any old West End satyr 
could have wished to see. I never inspected the 
Pilotel exhibition. An eminent man, Diderot, once 
said : " I like to see nudities well enough ; but 
I do not like anyone to show them to me." I think 
most men share that opinion. I have no " views " 
on this subject, nor on that of feminine dress in 19 16. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE'S FAMILY TREE 

The little Spanish town of Montijo, in the province 
of Badajoz, was raised to the dignity of a comte in 
1697 by King- Carlos II. for the benefit of Jean de 
Porto-Carrero (a member of a Genoa family), who 
married the sister of the Comte de Teba, of the 
old family of the Guzmans. One of the three sons 
of that gentleman was the father of the Empress 
Eugenie. He was a Count of Teba and a Count of 
Montijo and also a Marquis of Ardales. Further 
genealogical details appear in other works, 
blunders and all, and are of the slightest interest 
except to those who care to amuse themselves and 
puzzle their readers. Amiable attempts have been 
made to surround the parentage of the Empress 
with suspicion; to sully her fair fame; and some 
French journals concerned in the promulgation of 
these libels were successfully prosecuted. Since 
those prosecutions the august lady has remained 
indifferent to what has been published on the subject. 

It was in the house No. 12 Rue de Gracia, Granada, 
that the Empress Eugenie was reputed to be 
born, and there is still to be seen on it an inscription 
in Spanish to that effect. It runs : 

En este casa nacio la illustre 

Senora Dona Eugenie de Guzman 

y Portocarrero, 

Actual Emperatriz de los Franceses. 

149 



I50 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

El Ayuntamiento de Granada 

Al Colocar esta Lapida se honra con 

Al recuerdo de so noble compatricia 

Ano de 1867. 

The official certificate of birth of the Empress 
Eugenie recites that she was born at Granada on 
May 5, 1826, and baptized in the @hapel Royal of that 
town in the names of Marie Eugenie Ignace Augustine, 
the legitimate daughter of the " excellentissimes 
seigneurs D. Cipriano Guzman Palafox y Portocarrero 
et Dame da Maria Manuel Kirkpatrick y Grivegnee, 
Comte de Teba, Marquis d'Ardales, et Grand 
d'Espagne." The mother is stated in this document 
to have been the " daughter of M. Guillaume 
Kirkpatrick-Wilson, native of Dumfrite (Dumfries), 
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and of 
Dona Francisca Grivegnee y Gallegos, native of 
Malaga." The copy of the original document was 
made at Granada on December 21, 1889. 

" The Empress regrets that she cannot become 
a patroness of the Glasgow Dumfriesshire Society. 
For a long time past she has declined to accept the 
numerous invitations of this kind which she has 
received, asking her to allow her name to appear 
on public lists of [benevolent] associations, and 
she regrets that she cannot in this case make an 
exception to her invariable rule. To show the interest 
which she takes in the Glasgow Dumfriesshire 
Society, however, she encloses a cheque for ^5." 

Such, in substance, is the letter addressed by 
M. Pietri, in October, 1908, to Professor Edgar, of 
St Andrews University, president of the Glasgow 
Dumfriesshire Society, who had requested the 
Empress to allow her name to be placed upon the 



THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 151 

list of patrons of the association. M. Pietri added 
that " very old family ties " caused the Empress 
to take an interest in the society; hence the donation, 
in the form of a cheque signed "Comtesse de Pierre- 
fonds." Her Majesty's name had not then often 
figured on subscription lists or amongst the patrons of 
our innumerable philanthropic institutions; so that 
M. Pietri's communication came as an interesting 
novelty and was honoured by universal mention 
in the Press. Further, it served to remind the public 
of the Empress's connection with Dumfriesshire 
through the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn. 

Mr Tom Wilson, in the " Dumfries Courier and 
Herald," noted " a most interesting fulfilment of 
a Thomas-the-Rhymer prophecy that, when the moat 
of Closeburn Castle should be filled up and the 
dungeons used for household purposes, a descendant 
of the Kirkpatricks would sit on an Imperial throne — 
conditions which were effected by Sir Charles Gran- 
ville Stuart-Menteth, somewhere before 1847, 
converting the old peel tower into a dairy; which 
was followed, in 1853, by this daughter of the 
Kirkpatricks becoming the consort of Napoleon III." 

The correspondence between Professor Edgar and 
M. Pietri formed an agreeable subject of con- 
versation and comment in Scotland, and particularly 
in Dumfriesshire, and led to the publication in the 
journal above-mentioned of what may be regarded 
as the only accurate version of the Empress's Scottish 
ancestry. I am indebted to Professor Edgar for 
the subjoined copy of the statement referred to : — 

Once in the long ago the Empress Eugenie's ancestors 
were a power in Dumfriesshire. Tradition says the Kirk- 
patricks held lands in Nithsdale as far back as a.d. 800, 



152 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

and traced their descent from the giant King Finn, the 
son of Cool, through his son Ossian, the poet. Yvone de 
Kirkpatrick (1135), Knight of Closeburn, married the Lady 
Euphemia Bruce, who was descended from the Royal Kenneth 
M'Alpine (a.d. 843) through the granddaughter of King 
Edmund Ironside. The friendship between the families of 
Bruce and Kirkpatrick seems to have lasted long, for King 
Robert Bruce, in 1306, spoke of Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, the 
slayer of the Red Comyn, as his old friend, " vetus amicus." 
Another Kirkpatrick captured Caerlaverock Castle from King 
Edward of England fifty years after. In 1454, young 
Alexander Kirkpatrick took James, the ninth Earl of Douglas, 
prisoner at the battle of Burnswark, but he nobly refused 
to give him up until he was assured of the old man's pardon. 
Then his king gave him the lands of Kirkmichael as his 
guerdon. This Alexander was second son of another Sir 
Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn by his wife, Mary, the 
daughter of Lord Somerville, and granddaughter of Alexander, 
Lord Darnley, ancestor of James VI. of Scotland and I. of 
England. 

Kirkmichael remained with this branch of the family for 
nearly two centuries, and to this day may be seen grand 
old trees, probably planted by Wm. Kirkpatrick, the last 
laird of Kirkmichael, for he sold portions of his property 
to Sir John Charteris of Amisfield, and lived at Knock till 
his death. He is buried in the kirkyard of Garrel, close to 
the ruins of the old church. On the lintel of the doorway 
is carved the date of 161 7. Mr Campbell Gracie cleared 
away the moss on the tombstone, and the inscription read : — 
" Here lies the corps of William Kirkpatrick, who departed 
this life 9th June, 1686. His eldest son, George Kirkpatrick 
of Knock, who departed this life 1738, aged 67 years." 
To this day the inscription and the coat of arms can easily 
be traced. Next this grave is the stone erected to the 
memory of the Empress Eugenie's great-great-great-grand- 
father — Robert Kirkpatrick of Glenkiln. Legend says he 
was beheaded in Edinburgh for his loyal adherence to the 
Stuarts, but nothing of this is related on his stone. It only 
records his many good qualities : — " Robert Kirkpatrick 
of Glenkiln, died 12 Oct., 1746, aged 68 years. The 
superior qualities . . , the perfected . . . aided by honest 



THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 153 

. . . duties . . . his attention in his life . . . his amiable dis- 
position endeared him to ... * Mrs Kirkpatrick ' (she was 
a Miss Gillespie of Craigsheills), died 27 June, 1771, aged 

. " This Robert was the Laird of Kirkmichael's second 

son. Robert's third son, William, of Conheath, and of Over 
and Nether Glenkiln and Lambfoot, Kirkmichael, married 
Mary Wilson, the heiress of Kelton, Kirkcudbright, and had 
by her nineteen children. His sixth son, William, emigrated to 
Spain, where he married Dona Francesca de Grivegnee, the 
daughter of the Baron de Grivegnee, whose other daughter 
married the grandfather of the celebrated Ferdinand de Lesseps. 

William Kirkpatrick seems to have travelled a good deal 
in his time, for he visited his kinsfolk in County Dublin, 
the descendants of George Kirkpatrick of Knock. They 
still preserve his letters written from Malaga, where he was 
American Consul. He was in business as a wine merchant, 
and suffered severely from the French invasion of Spain. 
He had one son and four daughters : the son and one daughter 
died in infancy. His three surviving daughters were all 
very beautiful — the eldest. Dona Maria Manuela, married the 
wealthy Count de Monti jo, a grandee of Spain of the first 
rank ; Dona Carlota Catalona married her cousin, Thomas 
James, son of John Kirkpatrick of Conheath ; Dona Henriqueta 
married Don Domingo Carbarrus y Quelty, Count de 
Carbarrus. 

When the Count de Montijo, who also was Duke de 
Tameranda, was engaged to the lovely Maria Manuela Kirk- 
patrick — as he was one of the most illustrious nobles of the 
land — it was necessary for him to ask his Sovereign's consent, 
which could not be given till the lady's ancestry was proved 
equal to the Count's. Mr Kirkpatrick at once wrote to his 
relative, the late Chas. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Hoddam, who 
soon sent his pedigree showing the quartering of his family. 
So illustrious did the Kirkpatrick tree appear that the King 
at once exclaimed, " Let the good man marry the daughter 
of Fingal." The issue of this marriage was — first. Dona 
Maria Francesca de Sales, who married the Duke de Berwick 
and Alba, and died in i860; the second was the beautiful and 
amiable Dona Maria Eugenie, who married Napoleon IIL, 
Emperor of the French. 



154 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

In December, 1907, Mr T. Fisher Unwin still 
further enlightened us by this interesting communica- 
tion to a London paper :— 

Your notes on the Kirkpatrlck family recall to my mind my 
old friend, Mr Kirkpatrick, coffee and tea dealer, Queen Street, 
Cheapside. It must be nearly forty years ago when I 
used to take home a weekly supply of fresh-roasted coffee 
from his shop. It was an old-fashioned place, small windows 
with china bowls of coffee and tea, about the last of the old 
type of coffee and tea merchants. Mr Kirkpatrick himself 
was typical of the old-time gentleman tradesman, with a stick- 
up collar, stock and dress-coat. He always used to refer to 
the Empress as his cousin Eugenie. Such is my memory, 
but others may be able to give fuller details. The shop was 
very near the spot which is now Jones & Evans's bookshop, 
only, of course, the street has been set back since that date. 

Some of the Empress's Scottish connections reside 
in Paris, as witness this item from the " Figaro " 
(January 30, 1909) : " The-bridge chez Mme Kirk- 
patrick de Closeburn. Remarque dans I'elegante 
assistance — Princesse de Faucigny-Lucinge, Comtesse 
de Tredern, Mme Wellesley, Duchesse de Bellune, 
etc." 

The Empress's sojourn in Ireland in July, 1909, 
is fully narrated in my previous work, "The Empress 
Eugenie : 1870 — 19 10." As, however, the Imperial 
lady's genealogy formed a fruitful theme for dis- 
cussion during the visit, a brief reference to the 
question may be made here. " The Empress's 
visit," remarked the " Irish Times," " has a special 
interest from the fact that in coming to Ireland 
she is visiting the home of her ancestors, her 
Majesty being a descendant of an Irish gentleman 
who settled in Spain." 



THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 155 

Mr Alf. S. Moore, writing in another Dublin 
periodical, " The Lady of the House," headed a 
well-illustrated article, " An Empress of France in 
the Home of her Ancestors. How a Belfast Mer- 
chant's Granddaughter became the last Empress 
of France." " It is necessary," said Mr Moore, " to 
go back considerably over a century to trace the 
Empress's forbears." At that period " the shops 
in Belfast were modest, and few of them less pre- 
tentious than the small warehouse in Bridge Street 
behind the little many-framed window over which 
creaked the hanging sign of ' William Kirkpatrick, 
Grocer.' " 

Mr Kirkpatrick's " restless spirit ill-fitted him 
to be a grocer in an Irish country town " ; the sea- 
captains who visited his shop painted an alluring 
picture of the Republic across the Atlantic, " a 
land flowing with milk and honey," and so dazzling 
was the prospect that he emigrated. In the United 
States he " soon found himself climbing the ladder; 
and as ' drummer,' or buyer, for several Belfast 
and Dublin merchants, he watched his purse fatten." 
In course of time he was appointed United States' 
Consul at Malaga, married and had one son and 
four daughters; the boy and two of his sisters died, 
leaving Mr and Mrs Kirkpatrick with two daughters, 
one of whom became the Comtesse de Montijo, mother 
of the Empress Eugenie and the late Duchesse 
d'Albe. 

This is a variant of the accepted genealogy of 
the Imperial lady. It was, however, reserved for 
Mr Moore to tell us that the Empress's grandfather 
had resided at Belfast, although the Scottish version 
of the family history had informed us that William 



156 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Kirkpatrick " seems to have travelled a good deal 
in his time," and to have " visited his kinsfolk in 
county Dublin." 

Assuming Mr Moore to be correct in his facts, 
" an " ancestor of the Empress — her paternal grand- 
father — did reside, for an unstated time, in Ireland, 
although he was born in Scotland. The assertion 
of the " Irish Times " that William Kirkpatrick 
was an " Irish gentleman " is not, therefore, strictly 
speaking, accurate; but probably it will be agreeable 
to the Empress and her friends to find the chivalrous 
and warm-hearted natives of the Green Isle — 

First flower of the earth, first gem of the sea — 

expressing so ardent a desire to prove that she is 
of Irish descent. No one will need to be reminded 
of the sympathetic link which has so long existed 
between the Irish and the French. During the war 
of 1870 correspondents of Irish journals who were 
attached, as I was, to the German forces were not 
infrequently twitted with the friendly feeling dis- 
played by Ireland for France. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE EMPRESS'S TEARS 

For the second time since her arrival in the land of 
her exile, in September, 1870, the Empress Eugenie 
has been seen in an English Protestant place of 
worship, and on both occasions it was a mourning 
service at which she assisted. In Lord Sydney, the 
most notable Lord Chamberlain of the Victorian reign, 
she had had a valued friend, who had been one of 
the distinguished personages gathered around the 
coffin of the Prince Imperial in the little Catholic 
Church at Chislehurst in the summer of 1879. The 
funeral service for Lord Sydney was solemnised 
in the Protestant Church of Chislehurst ; and not a few 
of the congregation — Mr Gladstone, Lord Granville 
and other Liberal statesmen — were surprised when the 
Prince who is enshrined in our memory as Edward VII. 
was seen leading in the widow of Napoleon III. 

That was the Imperial lady's first appearance 
in an English Protestant church. For the second 
time (November 5, 19 14) she listened to, and took an 
eager part in, the beautiful Anglican service for 
the dead at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, in 
memory of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, one of the 
gallant sons of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter. 
With Princess Beatrice (whose character has been 
portrayed by her illustrious mother in a glowing 
tribute, penned on the occasion of her confirmation) 
the Empress has been on the most affectionate terms 
157 



158 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

for forty-four years; still, the surprise of the day at 
the in memoriam service in the Palace Chapel in 
1914 was the presence of the aged godmother of the 
Queen of Spain, the only sister of the young hero 
whose loss the nation laments. 

Eugenie de Montijo, for eighteen years Empress of 
the French, was the one historic figure in that gathering 
of two Queens, a King, an Heir- Apparent, Princes 
and Princesses of our own Royal House, a Prince and 
two Princesses of the French Orleans Royal Family, 
Ambassadors and Ministers of Legation, the few 
surviving members of that " Old Guard " who spent 
their best years in the service of King Edward and 
Queen Alexandra, two Field-Marshals (Lords Kit- 
chener and Grenfell), a Russian Grand Duke, and the 
Prime Minister. 

A Bonapartist Empress, Princesses of the family 
of King Louis Philippe, our own Sovereign Lord, and 
our Sovereign Ladies kneeling side by side in the 
Chapel Royal on " Inkerman " Day — here was a 
spectacle for the historians of this reign, so teeming 
with events and episodes for which the printed page 
has no parallel. 

Among this congregation of the elite were to be seen 
four who knew better than all others the extremely 
cordial relations which, from 1870 onwards, have 
formed an indissoluble link between certain members 
of our Royal Family and the Empress. These are 
Queen Alexandra, Lord Knollys, Miss Charlotte 
Knollys and Sir Dighton Probyn, The initiative 
was taken by Queen Victoria, who, very shortly after 
the arrival of the dethroned lady on our shores early 
in the September of the " Terrible Year," took 
Princess Beatrice with her to Chislehurst to offer the 



THE EMPRESS'S TEARS 159 

hand of friendship to the fair exile, whose hospitality 
had been extended to our Sovereign and her two 
eldest children at a period when the Napoleonic star 
was at its brightest. 

In January, 1873, the Queen and Princess Beatrice, 
watched, from a gallery in the grounds of Camden 
Place, the funeral cortege of the Emperor. When, 
six and a half years later, the country was shocked 
by the tragedy in Zululand, the Queen and her 
daughter hastened to condole with the stricken 
Empress. Later they were not infrequently at Farn- 
borough Hill. Often since the Queen's death the 
mother of Prince Maurice has consoled the Empress 
at Cap Martin, and Princess Christian has cheered 
the veuve tragique at her picturesque Hampshire 
home. 

When the untimely death of Edward VH. steeped 
the Empire in gloom no letters were more sympathetic, 
and few more masterly, than those written by the 
Empress to the members of our Royal Family, 
notably to Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of 
Battenberg, and Princess Christian. It was the 
grateful remembrance of all these Royal friend- 
ships that impelled the Empress, in her eighty-ninth 
year, to range herself by the side of her cherished 
friend. Princess Henry, in the hour of her grief. As 
they greeted each other, on arriving and departing, 
the Empress's eyes were bedewed with tears. 

As the " Requiem ^ternam " and Mendelssohn's 
" Marche Funebre " filled the little fane with divine 
melody and " Lie still, beloved," brought tears into 
many eyes, some of the soldiers present may have had 
in their thoughts the tender words of the " enemy " 
song : " I had a comrade — you could not find a 



i6o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

better one. The drum called to battle. He marched 
next to me, at the same pace. A bullet comes flying. 
Is it for me or for you.'* It brings him down. He 
is lying at my feet as if he were a piece of myself." 

You do not know a man thoroughly until you have 
stood by his side when bullets sing and shells fly. 
Nights in the trenches and the march into action at 
sunrise reveal the souls of men to each other as they 
are never otherwise revealed. Those who shared 
with Maurice of Battenberg the perils and the glories, 
the happiness and the miseries of life at " the front " 
will retain memories of his pluck, his lovable nature, 
and his good comradeship. For all he had a cheery, 
kindly word, and all had a kindly word for him. 

While tenderest sympathy went out to the bereaved 
and widowed mother, affectionate thoughts were of 
another Prince, who, in 19 lo, passed out of a crowded 
life of soldiering abroad and well-doing at home : 
Queen Mary's brother, Francis, whose last hours were 
solaced by the presence of a loving sister and her 
King-Consort, who closed the eyes of one who had 
fought for our cause in Egypt and in South Africa 
and had nobly earned the Victorian medal and the 
D.S.O. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE EMPRESS'S " INDISCRETIONS " 

The Empress had not been in England two months 
ere she surprised the world by publishing two docu- 
ments which can be classed only as " indiscretions." 
Who prompted her to perpetrate these absurdities 
I cannot say, but Mr Algernon Borthwick, * the 
editor of the " Morning Post," knew, and, as the 
friend of the Emperor Napoleon, and his Majesty's 
constant supporter in the London Press, he was 
within his right in criticising these effusions. 

Both communiques were sent from Chislehurst 
to the " Daily News." The second in point of fact, 
but the more remarkable of the two, was originally 
written in French. The editor explained that it 
was " an authentic statement of facts, and of the 
views of the illustrious lady mainly concerned " ; and 
that his " sole object in publishing the communica- 
tion" was " to afford an opportunity for the rectification 
of false statements which had been very generally 
diffused." From the " Daily News " (October, 
1870): 

"Since her arrival in England the Empress Eugenie 
has not only remained a stranger to every intrigue, but 
has repelled, with energy and dignity, everything 
which looked like a Bonapartist conspiracy. It is 

* The late Lord Glenesk (died October, 1908). 
L 161 



162 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

not to be inferred that she has lost all hope of a 
restoration, nor is her present silence to be construed 
to the prejudice of the future; but, with a political 
sagacity which misfortune has rendered more clear- 
sighted than ever, she has perceived that the moment 
for dynastic speculations is not yet arrived, and 
that too great haste would infallibly prove fatal 
to her hopes. At this moment her anxieties are 
of another kind. With the same fidelity as if she 
were still in France, and in full possession of the power 
which the disaster of Sedan destroyed, her thoughts 
were occupied solely with the national defence. 
Upon that point her ideas are in complete accord 
with those of the Government of Tours — the refusal 
of all cession of territory. 

" The evidence of this may be found in her answer to 
the first emissary sent to her by M. de Bismarck 
on the 15th of last month (September), when she had 
been only a few days in England, and when the 
events that had brought about her exile were still so 
recent that she might perhaps have been excused 
if she had seized on the first opportunity of exercising 
her authority as Regent. Prussia, at that time, was 
ready to make peace. The victories of Weissenberg, 
of Forbach and of Sedan were enough for her 
glory. Public opinion in Germany had not then 
been embittered by the continuance of a war which 
the surrender of the Emperor promised at first to 
terminate, and the Chancellor of the North German 
Federation did not then feel himself obliged to 
conclude a peace on the basis of Strasburg — the 
key of the house, as he calls that French city — 
with a portion of the department of the Bas-Rhin, 
including but 250,000 inhabitants, and with a war 



THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 163 

indemnity of 2,000,000,000 of francs.* The Empress 
rejecting, long before the Provisional Government, 
the idea of territorial cession, refused this proposition ; 
which has remained so completely unknown that views 
are to-day imputed to her which would be wholly 
inconsistent with her past acts, and as hostile to 
her interests as to those of France. No doubt 
conversations take place at Chislehurst between the 
Empress and her household. The chances of restora- 
tion and the means to be employed when the hour 
shall strike may well be discussed, but such views 
are private and have remained private, nor has 
any indiscretion — a thing in itself improbable— given 
to anybody the right to state them in a positive 
form, much less to give them an official character. 

"To form a juster estimate of the various narratives 
that have been published, it needs only to keep 
in mind the intrigue in which General Bourbaki 
became an involuntary tool, or that famous manifesto 
imputed to the prisoner of Wilhelmshohe. It is 
known to-day how entirely ignorant was the Empress 
of those two matters, and what a surprise to her 
was the arrival of the confidant of Marshal Bazaine. 
It ought to be equally well known that her desire 
to take part in none of the intrigues of which it was 
sought to make Chislehurst the centre has been 
formally expressed. The Empress lives in the most 
absolute retirement, surrounded by a few persons 
whose devotion is known, coming but seldom to 
London, dividing her hopes between France and her 
son. The arrival of General Boyer was as unexpected 
as that of General Bourbaki. It was only natural 

* ;;^8o,ooo,ooo. The money indemnity alone ultimately 
exacted was five milliards of francs, or _;^200, 000,000. 



i64 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

that the envoy sent by Marshal Bazaine to the 
Prussian headquarters should have thought it a 
duty, when his mission was accomplished, to pay 
his respects to the Empress at Chislehurst, and to 
apprise her of what was passing at Metz. Everything 
beyond this is pure imagination. There was no 
question of a military revolution in the interview 
of last Saturday at Chislehurst, but solely of the 
possibility of continued resistance. To suppose that 
the discussion between the Empress and General 
Boyer had any other end is to hold light the military 
honour of the defender of Metz, as well as to confess 
ignorance of the relations existing since the Mexican 
war between Marshal Bazaine and the Empress, 
with whom he has never been a favourite. 

" From such an interview, it is a long step to that 
project of the Empress's journey, and to that part 
she was to be made to play in the negotiations 
for peace. No doubt the Empress eagerly desires to 
see an end of hostilities ; but whatever those reckless 
partisans whose dangerous services she rejects may 
assert, or allow to be supposed, and whatever may be 
the diplomatic intrigues of which M. de Bismarck 
desires to make her an instrument, it is certain that she 
does not dream of sacrificing an inch of French 
territory or any part of the honour of the country to 
her dynastic interest. 

" When Alsace and Lorraine shall be no longer 
in question, the Empress will doubtless use every 
effort to put herself in agreement with the country, 
with a view to obtaining an honourable peace, but 
till then she will abstain, with the same dignity 
and resolution as heretofore. 

" In view of a recent communication, it is proper to 



THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 165 

add that family intrigues succeed no better with 
the Empress than those which are hatched from 
beyond the Rhine. What is known of the two inter- 
views between the Empress and her cousin, Prince 
Napoleon, serves to show her firmness and her just 
appreciation of men, as well as of circumstances. 
It is well known indeed that the Emperor's cousin 
has never been in any great odour of sanctity at the 
Tuileries, and that the Empress personally has 
taken little pains to conceal her prepossessions 
against one whom she has always considered the 
Emperor's enemy. The political temperament of 
Prince Napoleon, and his philosophical and moral 
opinions, were, it is true, but little in accordance with 
those of the Empress, and the sad events of which 
France has been the victim did not in any way tend 
to reconcile views or feelings, between which there 
had been no possible point of contact. Be that as it 
may, and not to push an inquiry into psychological 
peculiarities, it is certain that the second and last visit 
of Prince Napoleon at Chislehurst ended in an 
explosion. The Prince may protest as much as he 
likes; that will not alter the facts. 

" During this last visit Prince Napoleon, with his 
usual impulsiveness, allowed himself to express 
somewhat harshly his opinions touching the different 
Ministries of the last month of the Empire, and he 
went so far as to call one of them a Ministry of 
idiots (cretins). Now, the sentiment of gratitude 
is very strong with the Empress, and she made a 
reply to her illustrious cousin, of which the following 
sentences convey the substance, if not the precise 
words : ' I know not, Monseigneur,' said the 
Empress, ' what you mean by a Ministry of idiots; 



i66 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

but what I do know is that, down to the last moment, 
the Emperor was served by devoted and faithful 
friends. For the last eighteen months you have 
opposed the Empire; and those about you have 
never ceased to undermine it, and to-day, when the 
Emperor is fallen, you pursue him still. Had you 
been at Paris on the 4th of September you might 
have been able to give us good advice, but you were 
absent, as you have so often happened to be at the 
moment of danger, of course to your great regret, 
as I do not doubt.' Upon this, Prince Napoleon 
tarried no longer. He took up his hat and left the 
room." 

On the day after the appearance of this Chislehurst 
" Manifesto," as it was termed, Mr Borthwick 
reproduced it in the " Morning Post," accompanied 
by a trenchant leading article, portions of which are 
appended : — 

" Francis I. wrote, ' Tout est perdu fors I'honneur.' 
The Empire will hardly save even that remnant if 
its representatives insist on giving to the world such 
material for scandal as is afforded by the statement 
which we publish in another column. We have ever 
held the Empress Eugenie in the highest respect, 
and now more than ever is it incumbent on English- 
men to testify their regard for the dynasty which 
has been faithful to the English alliance, and which, 
in its exile, claims from us every expression of 
sympathy and hospitality. But about her Imperial 
Majesty there must be some very injudicious advisers. 
Whatever course that illustrious lady may choose 
to pursue, it cannot be right to publish to the world 



THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 167 

the secrets and the family quarrels of Chislehurst. 
We have no wish to learn that Prince Napoleon 
called the Ollivier Cabinet a Ministry of Cretins, 
or that the Empress in reply taunted the Prince in 
the strongest words which a woman could use to a 
man, and that he took up his hat and left the room. 
Such painful scenes should not be forced on public 
attention, and those who advised their Mistress to 
disclose the squabbles of a divided House are 
guilty, not only of bad taste, but of positive treason. 
The explosion at Chislehurst should have been 
treated like the great work of Slawkenbergius. The 
philosophical and moral opinions of Prince Napoleon, 
his psychological peculiarities, and their little accord- 
ance with those of the Empress, are subjects which 
had best be left alone, and not stirred before the 
public face." 

The Empress, Mr Borthwick pointed out, had 
rejected, at Chislehurst, Bismarck's offers, and " the 
Germans were positively forced forward by the 
foolish incapacity of the persons they treated with." 
" It is deplorable to think that those about the Empress 
should have only seen a ' Bonapartist conspiracy' 
in the offer of easy terms. What flatterers can have 
told her Majesty that ' her political sagacity is 
more clear-sighted than ever, that the moment for 
dynastic speculations is not yet arrived, and that too 
great haste would infallibly prove fatal to her 
hopes ' ? How trifling is the fate of a dynasty when 
compared with the ruin of an Empire ! " 

One can see the Prisoner at Wilhelmshohe reading 
the article, and thanking his stars that at least one 
friend remained candid enough to warn his impetuous 



i68 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

consort of the blunders she was making at the 
instigation of the " self-seeking toadies who sur- 
rounded her, each more ruse than the other." * But 
this washing of the Imperial linen in public, these 
refusals of the Regent to listen to the " easy terms " 
proffered by the Chancellor of the North German 
Confederation, were more than blunders — they were, 
in the editor of the " Morning Post's " words, 
" positively high treason." The results of the 
" policy " originated in the Blue Salon at Camden 
Place were seen a couple of months later, in the 
terms of peace not offered, but demanded and exacted 
— the cession of the two provinces and a cash 
indemnity of ^200,000,000, with sundry other humilia- 
ting conditions. Moltke thought it " not enough," 
and would have added another milliard, another 
^40,000,000, to the indemnity, but for Bismarck's 
objections and the intercession of the British Govern- 
ment. Bismarck was, as the Eton boy wrote of 
Dr Benson, " a beast," but he was " a just beast " — 
always, of course, in the interests of the Fatherland. 

The " Manifesto " which aroused the ire of 
Mr Borthwick was not the first document of its kind 
which emanated from Chislehurst while the Empress 
was still invested with the powers (such as they then 
were) of the Regency. Two days before the appear- 
ance of the effusion printed at the beginning of this 
chapter a species of avant-coureur had been published, 
also in the " Daily News " (just then at the height 
of its enviable reputation), and reproduced by the 
" Morning Post " and the " Times " :— 

" Notwithstanding what is announced, and even 

^"Morning- Post," October 29, 1870, 



THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 169 

affirmed, in certain English journals pretending to 
have the best information, the Empress Eugenie has 
taken no part in any one of the combinations referred 
to having for their object either peace or an armistice. 
The salon at Chislehurst has not become, in any sense, 
an official salon. It is still that of an exile; and 
if its doors are open to those who knock for admittance 
it is not to afford them a field for discussing peace 
or war. General Boyer, the envoy of Marshal 
Bazaine, may have approached the Empress with a 
view to propositions of peace or war to be submitted 
to Prussia, but he was received with no more favour 
than were the emissaries of M. de Bismarck on 
a former occasion. When a former envoy of the 
Chancellor of the North German Confederation came 
to propose peace, declaring that King William was 
disposed to content himself with 250,000 French 
inhabitants, Strasburg included, the Empress replied 
with great energy that, so long as an enemy was in 
France, and so long as there was any question of the 
smallest cession of territory, she would hold aloof 
from every negotiation. The events of the last month 
have made no change in her resolution, and so far 
as the efforts of General Boyer have been directed to 
this point they have completely failed. 

Nor could the mission of General Boyer have 
had for its object to consult the Empress as to the 
propriety of surrendering Metz at this moment. 
That is only one way of connecting the real object 
of his journey. Marshal Bazaine, confident in the real 
strength of his position as a general who has suffered no 
defeat, and at the head of the only French army which 
still exists, thinks himself entitled t'o exercise not 
a little influence on the question whether peace shall 



I70 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

be made or hostilities continue. He would gladly 
make himself indispensable; would gladly be the 
dictator, with whom the enemy would have to treat, 
taking the lead both of the Government which sits at 
Tours and of that which is shut up in Paris. He 
would rejoice that France should owe peace or victory 
to him, and to him only. This is a respectable 
ambition, exaggerated as it may perhaps be; but it 
must not be inferred that Marshal Bazaine would 
rather conclude a peace favourable to the Napoleonic 
dynasty than in accordance with the true interests 
of his country. 

" There is, then, no particle of truth in the stories 
told about the interview at Chislehurst; and it can 
scarcely be necessary to add that the approaching 
journey of the Empress to King William's head- 
quarters belongs, like all the rest, to that domain of 
invention in which the subtle genius of Prussia, 
coming to the aid of her present difficulties, has con- 
trived, during the last few weeks, to lead us astray. 

" Prince Napoleon, taking sides with those who 
would perhaps have wished to induce the Empress 
to commit an indiscretion, has had his trouble for 
his pains, while his violent recriminations against 
the past policy of the Empire had no other result 
than to compel him to listen to some harsh truths from 
his Imperial cousin [the Empress] and to cause 
him to quit Chislehurst somewhat suddenly — ^where 
indeed his reception had been of the coldest." 

With the severe censure of the " Morning Post " 
ringing in her ears and, we may be certain, a copy 
of the Bonapartist organ in her pocket, the Empress 
started on a flying visit to her husband, travelling 



THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 171 

as " Comtesse Clary," and escorted by the Count 
himself, Mr Borthwick's denunciation of the Mani- 
festo appeared on the 29th of October; on the 
following day the Empress reached Wilhelmshohe, 
and probably had to listen to a lecture from her 
consort on the folly of alienating their champion 
in the London Press at a moment when his support 
was doubly precious. 



CHAPTER XVII 

HOW THE GERMANS TREATED THEIR 
EMPEROR-PRISONER 

The 3rd of September, 1870, fell on a Saturday. 
On the I St the battle of Sedan had been fought; the 
next day the arrangements for the surrender of the 
French forces were completed, and the Emperor 
had delivered himself into the King of Prussia's 
hands, a prisoner. On the 3rd the Empress's consort 
began, unknown to her at the moment (she was still 
at the Tuileries, which she vacated on the 4th), his 
journey to Wilhelmshohe, where he remained seven 
months and then joined his wife and son at Camden 
Place, Chislehurst, where he died on the 9th of 
January, 1873. On the day of the Emperor's 
departure from Sedan to his " prison " the German 
forces left the battlefield for Paris, which they 
surrounded on the 19th of September. I accom- 
panied a battery of the Crown Prince of Saxony's 
army, and remained with it " before Paris " until 
November. I have fully described this march to the 
French capital in my work on the Kaiser.* 

There is only one authoritative account of the 
Emperor's life during his captivity, " Napoleon III. 
auf Wilhelmshohe," written by his niece, Tony von 
Held, from the " papers " of General of Infantry 
Count C. von Monts, in whose custody the Emperor 

*"The Public and Private Life of the Kaiser Wilhelm II." 
London : Eveleigh Nash. 1915- 

172 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 173 

was placed by King (afterwards Emperor) William I., 
the present Kaiser's grandfather. General Monts 
was born in 1801, and was sixty-nine when, in 1870, 
he became Governor of Cassel. In 1866 he com- 
manded the 6th Army Corps in the war with Austria. 
He took no part in any of the battles in 1870; after 
the war he became commander of the nth Army 
Corps, retired the same year (1871), and died at 
Dresden in 1886, aged nearly ninety. 

Some two years ago a French translation of the 
German work appeared, "^ and from it I have gathered 
the materials for this chapter. (The name of M. Paul- 
Bruck Gilbert, mentioned in the footnote, is familiar 
to me, as he is the translator of my volume, " The 
Empress Eugenie: 1870 — 1910," which is to be 
issued by MM. Pierre Lafitte et Cie., the publishers of 
General Monts' work.) 

On September 4, 1870, f the chief magistrate 
of Cassel received from the King's headquarters at 
Varennes a telegram signed by General von Treskow 
(aide de camp) stating that the French army had 
capitulated and that the chateau of Wilhelmshohe, 
three miles from Cassel, had been chosen as the 
residence of the Emperor Napoleon, who would 
arrive immediately in charge of General von Boyen. 
In concert with the general, the chief magistrate 
was to be " very attentive to all the Emperor's 
legitimate wishes. The public attitude towards the 

*" La Captivite de Napoleon III. en Allemagne." Souvenirs 
traduits de I'Mlemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul Levy. 
Preface par Jules Claretie, de rAcademie Frangaise. Paris : 
Pierre Lafitte et Cie. 

t Date of the proclamation of the Republic and the hasty 
departure of the Empress from the Tuileries. 



174 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Emperor must be decorous. The public are to be 
kept out of the railways and from the immediate 
proximity of the chateau." 

The chateau is surmounted by a cupola, and has a 
portico of six columns. It had been in past times a 
Benedictine monastery, and then became the summer 
residence of the Electors of Hesse. With its 
great lake, old trees and park it is a charming home. 
From a hill overlooking the chateau there is a 
magnificent view of the " mountains " and forests 
of Thuringia. In 1807 Jerome Napoleon (grand- 
father of the Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon) 
was made King of Westphalia by his brother, the 
Great Emperor, and resided at the chateau, which 
contains numerous Napoleonic souvenirs, including 
a portrait of Queen Hortense, mother of Napoleon III., 
who was somewhat surprised, when he first strolled 
through the apartments, at finding it there. 

The majority of the population, and of the middle 
classes, of Hesse regretted that so beautiful a place 
should have been assigned to " the instigator of 
this bloody war. The hotelkeepers at Cassel, and 
especially those at Wilhelmshohe, highly approved 
of the Emperor's internment so near Cassel, and they 
benefited largely therefrom " (Monts). 

The Emperor reached Cassel in the evening of 
September 5, and was met at the railway station by 
the principal authorities. General Monts and others. 
It was raining in torrents when the train arrived. 
As the Emperor and the officers accompanying him 
alighted a company of infantry presented arms, and 
General Boyen, with whom was Prince Lynar (formerly 
secretary of the German Embassy at Paris), intro- 
duced Monts to the Emperor, who passed slowly 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 175 

along the line of troops and saluted them. All 
the members of the party were at once driven to the 
chateau, where an officer and forty men were, and 
remained, on duty, while eight men were posted 
round the house. 

The members of the Emperor's suite did not arrive 
until after midnight. They were escorted to the 
chateau by hussars. The Imperial party comprised 
the Emperor; General Castelnau, first aide de camp; 
General Prince de la Moskowa, second A.D.C.; 
Brigadier-General Comte Reille, A.D.C.; Brigadier 
General Comte Pajol; Brigadier-General de Vaubert; 
Prince Achille Murat, officier d'ordonnance ; Com- 
mandant Hepp, of the General Staff; Comte Lauriston, 
officier d'ordonnance; Comte Davillier, premier 
ecuyer; Rainbeaux, deuxieme ecuyer; Senator Dr 
Conneau, premier medecin; Dr Corvisart, deuxieme 
medecin; M. Franceschini Pietri, private secretary; 
and the Prussian Lieutenant Prince Lynar. 

Forty domestics and eight-five horses had been 
announced; but there arrived more than a hundred 
" subalterns " — lacqueys, domestics, grooms and 
ordonnances. Monts thinks that many of these 
attached themselves to the Imperial captive's suite 
without permission, in the hope of sharing the 
privileges accorded to the Emperor. 

On the following day Monts received from Cler- 
mont a telegram saying that the King expected him 
to send telegraphic news of all that had occurred ; and 
on the same day General Boyen telegraphed inform- 
ing Monts that the King had confided the Emperor 
to his charge. Simultaneously the Emperor said 
he would like to see Monts at 2 p.m. Boyen now 
told Monts that the King, on the Sedan battle- 



176 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

field, had given the first instructions as regarded the 
captive Emperor. * 

The interview which Monts, accompanied by Boyen, 
now had with the captive took place, says the former, 
in a very small room, having only one window, at 
which Napoleon was standing. The Emperor invited 
the two generals to sit down. 

" Napoleon looked very different from what I had 
imagined, different also from the hundreds of portraits 
I had seen of him. His hair .is not brown, but 
sandy (cendre, blond fonce); scarcely any grey hairs 
were visible. His eyes have not the semi-lustre of 
the Corsicans; they are blue and their expression 
is soft, almost tender. The moustache is neither 
turned up nor waxed. He has nothing about him 
which might recall the 'vieux grognards' of the First 
Empire. He has a tired look ; a healthy complexion, 
that of a man of a certain age, well preserved. 
The nose, strongly curved, might be termed Napo- 
leonic, but not his chin, which is not fleshy and 
round, like that of the Uncle and of Prince 
Napoleon, t His features express kindliness and 
good will, and his voice does not belie that impression. 
His whole attitude is characterised by a certain 
lassitude, which only disappears when he is talking 
about things which particularly interest him, such as 
the Empress's and the Prince Imperial's health. He 
then looked almost captivating. 

" The Emperor is short — 5 ft. 2 or 3 in. according 

* This must have been not on the day of, but the day after, 
the battle, when the Emperor had personally surrendered to the 
King. 

t Father of the Princes Victor and Louis of to-day. 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 177 

to our measures. His walk is slow, dragging; he 
takes little steps. Nearly always his head droops 
on the right side. Although knowing German per- 
fectly he speaks French almost exclusively. He 
thinks he does not speak German with sufficient 
fluency. When he does speak it the born linguist is 
revealed. He seldom makes the mistake of trans-, 
lating literally. English and Italian are familiar to 
him. He corresponds in both languages and reads 
the English papers — the ' Times ' for preference. 

" Our conversation was of vague generalities. 
The Emperor presented me to his generals and other 
members of the suite. ... A post and telegraph 
office was provided at the chateau for the use of the 
prisoners, who were allowed to send even cipher 
messages. ... It was with General Castelnau, who 
acquainted me with the Emperor's wishes, that I had 
most interviews. Cooks from the Palace at Berlin 
prepared the meals of the Emperor and his suite; 
those for the domestics were supplied by the hotel- 
keeper Schombart. The prisoners were given great 
liberty and permitted to visit, unaccompanied, Cassel, 
Wilhelmstal (a chateau between those two places), 
and the environs of Wilhelmshohe, either on foot, on 
horseback, or in carriages ; but they were not allowed 
to sleep out. They might wear civilian dress. From 
the outset I had decided not to reside in the chateau, 
and on September 8 the King sent me a telegram 
to that effect. . . . Queen [afterwards Empress] 
Augusta took the greatest interest in the prisoners 
and sent them games of every kind. A billiard- 
table was specially provided for them, and of this they 
made good use. They read very few of the French 
books in the fine library. The Emperor received 

M 



178 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

a number of papers from Brussels, including 'L'lnde- 
pendance Beige ' ; there were also the ' Allgemeine 
Zeitung ' and a local paper. The Emperor always 
showed himself very grateful to our King for his 
kindness. The prisoners were given back their arms, 
and appeared at meals in petite tenue, with sword. 
Permission was given to all, Napoleon included, 
to attend the theatre at Cassel, but only Prince 
Murat availed himself of the privilege. I did not 
favour applications to take part in the chasses. The 
master of hounds had told me that the (German) 
members of the hunt would leave the field if any of 
the prisoners made their appearance. I took the 
greatest care to prevent scenes of this kind." 

One Sunday (October 30, 1870), General Monts 
was told by General Castelnau that the Empress 
Eugenie had unexpectedly arrived at the chateau. 
Monts had just received from the King a telegram 
and sought out the Emperor, who immediately received 
him not, as usual, in his own little room, but in a 
large adjoining apartment. The General was speaking 
to his Majesty when the Empress entered hastily. 
She had come " straight through " from Chislehurst, 
travelling day and night, and was naturally tired. 

" Nevertheless," says the General, " when I had 
been presented to her she entered into conversation 
vivaciously. She was then forty-five. Overwhelmed 
by misfortune, fatigued by her long journey and 
visibly affected by the meeting with her husband 
and by the news of the fall of Metz [on the 27th], 
she had lost her admirable beauty. The char- 
acteristics of her youth had not vanished, but all 
their freshness had disappeared. Her hair, still 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 179 

blond, had lost its former lustre. She was about 
the same height as her consort [5 ft. 2 or 3 in.] — 
therefore not short for a woman. Her graceful figure 
and her attitude made her appear still beautiful. * 
All her manner convinced me that she had always 
known how to impose her views of her husband's 
policy. She spoke little to me, more to the Emperor, 
and displayed throughout great assurance in her 
observations. I derived the absolute impression that 
she was accustomed, not only to make herself listened 
to, but to have the last word. She affected a 
certain superiority over the Emperor, a sort of 
tutorship; and if it is true that she had been at the 
head of the war party in Paris I fully understand that 
her opinion was the decisive one. 

It has been narrated that, whenever in conversation 
the question of war with Prussia was discussed, 
the Empress said : ' It is my war ! ' \ It has been 
also reported that, long before the war of 1870, the 
Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, being seated at 
table next to the Empress, referred to the growing 
rapprochement between Northern and Southern Ger- 
many; that the Empress immediately said that France 
would never give her consent thereto; and that the 
Grand Duke replied : ' Then we shall do without it.' " 

* In " The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — igio " there is a very 
brief account of her Majesty's visit to the Emperor, but not 
by General Monts. It is, moreover, confined to the actual 
meeting- of their Majesties on the Empress's arrival, to which 
General Monts makes no reference. The two accounts are, 
therefore, entirely dissimilar. 

t Vide "The 'Case' for the Empress," in the volume, 
"The Empress Eugenie: 1870 — 1910," in which it is 
emphatically and authoritatively denied that her Majesty ever 
uttered those words. 



i8o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

In the opinion of Monts, this visit of the Imperial 
lady to Wilhelmshohe had political motives. It 
had been hoped (he adds) that, after the capitulation 
of Metz, the King of Prussia would give the French 
armies back to the Emperor so that he might restore 
order and the Imperial power. The Empress said to 
Monts : " You see, if the King of Prussia had 
restored the French army to us we should have been 
able to make an honourable peace and restore order 
in France." Monts thinks it quite likely that the 
Empress desired to discuss with the Emperor what 
should be done now that Metz had fallen and that 
the marshals, forty generals and the army were 
interned in Germany. 

" Attacks," says Monts, " have been often made 
on the character of the Empress Eugenie, who had 
been brought up by a frivolous mother. In fact, 
her foolishness, her lightness, her vanity and her 
coquetry, which incited her to extravagances, were 
a bad example for the Court. For the rest (and 
this happens to all who play a part in public life), 
it may be presumed that her critics have not always 
taken sufficiently into account facts and circumstances, 
and that in their criticisms were exaggerations and 
even lies. On this point the opinion of a wealthy 
Spaniard, a resident for many years in Germany, 
is much more valuable than the gossip of badly 
informed newspapers. His family and business 
affairs often took this compatriot of the Empress 
into his native country, and he relates that noble 
families, of high repute, speak only with esteem 
of the conduct of the former Mademoiselle de 
Montijo. 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER i8i 

" The unfortunate Sovereign, during her visit to 
Cassel, was so heavily struck and tried by Fate that 
no one could imagine her to have been a frivolous and 
superficial person. The events of the last weeks 
had undoubtedly given more gravity to her character. 
In any case, the Empress did not make upon 
me, during this brief meeting, the unfavourable 
impression which I had anticipated. To-day still, 
when I think of her, I see her as a woman possessing 
a maturity of mind, acquired late, perhaps; sure 
of herself, sagacious, combining agreeable manners 
with the intelligence of the woman who has made the 
interests of the public her own. My feelings con- 
cerning the poor woman were those of deep compassion, 
increased by the thought that she must be conscious 
of having been the cause of the punishment. 

" In reply to the question which I had asked 
our King relative to the stay of the Empress with the 
Emperor, I received from Versailles [the Royal 
headquarters] the following telegram : ' The decision 
respecting the sojourn of the Empress at Wil- 
helmshohe must be left entirely to the two Majesties, 
and you must maintain an absolutely passive attitude. — 
William.' 

" The august lady remained at Wilhelmshohe until 
the evening of the ist of November. No one was 
informed of her intentions, but, judging by her 
scanty baggage, she had made up her mind to remain 
for a very short time. I was surprised at seeing 
Pietri, the uncle of the Emperor's secretary, return 
to Cassel at the news of the Empress's coming, and 
that, as nobody was aware, the Duchess of Hamilton 
hastily returned to Wilhelmshohe on the ist of 
November in the morning. Naturally I did not mix 



i82 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

myself up with the negotiations which certainly went on 
in the Emperor's entourage. It is more than probable 
that they referred to the situation at the moment. * 

" That the Empress was leaving was unknown 
until the last moment. In the afternoon, at five 
o'clock, a hired carriage came to a door at the back 
of the chateau, and the Empress, accompanied by her 
little suite, entered it, and was driven off towards the 
railway station. The Empress alighted at some little 
distance from the station, and Commandant Hepp, 
who spoke German [he was an Alsatian], assisted 
her to take the tickets and to speak a few words to 
the guard of the train, which went towards Hanover. 
She went straight to England." 

The only marshals who visited the Emperor at 
Wilhelmshohe were Bazaine, Canrobert and Leboeuf. 
MacMahon refused to come. " General Castelnau 
and Marshal Canrobert (I spoke to no others on the 
subject) energetically denied that Bazaine had ever 
committed a dishonourable act. Bazaine's attitude 
at the chateau was calm and dignified. The Marshal, 
his wife and their children passed the winter in a 
small villa at Cassel. The Emperor always spoke 
of the Marshal in high terms." Among others who 
presently arrived at the chateau were General Prince 
Joachim Murat and several of his officers — all 
prisoners. General Henry and Comte Clary f were 

* No better proof than this could be adduced of the perfect 
freedom accorded to the Emperor during his "captivity." 
How would he have fared under the present Hunnlsh Kaiser ? 

t Clary was much occupied for months in doing the Emperor's 
behests, not very successfully. The Comtesse Clary, his wife, 
survived him for many years, dying In Paris only in December, 
191 5, at over ninety. 



THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 183 

also seen at Wilhelmshohe. I have a clear recollection 
of both. Clary and his wife were prominent among 
the Imperial entourage at Chislehurst, and had many 
friends in London. 

On the 19th of March, 1871, the Emperor and his 
suite left Cassel for England, escorted to the Belgian 
frontier by General Monts. There was a great 
crowd at the Cassel station, but there were no 
" manifestations," the departure taking place, says 
Monts, " in absolute silence." 

The three hundred and thirty pages of General 
Monts' book are a most valuable addition to the 
literature of the Second Empire. They show how 
generously Napoleon III. was treated throughout his 
seven months' internment by the Emperor William I. 
and his consort, and mark the divergence between 
the characters of that monarch and his grandson. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE " LITTLE MAN " 

In 1850 Prince Clovis of Hohenlohe was introduced, 
in Paris, to the then Prince-President of the Republic. 
Standing near a door, at the Elysee, he saw " a little 
man, looking like an officer of Bavarian chevau- 
legers, wearing the grand cordon of the Legion 
d'Honneur." The " little man " (he was about 
5 ft. 2 in., or 5 ft. 3 in. at the outside) said : " I 
passed my youth in Bavaria, at Augsburg, and shall 
retain of it always un tres bon souvenir." 

The diplomatist saw, on the same occasion, Louis 
Napoleon's cousin, Princesse Mathilde, " une grosse 
et belle dame, convert de diamants." * 

In his preface to the French edition of General 
Count von Monts' narrative of the Emperor Napoleon's 
life at Wilhelmshohe,t the late M. Jules Claretie, 
director of the Theatre Fran^ais and brilliant chroni- 
queur, has some characteristic comments on the 
Emperor, of whom he had been an opponent : — 

" Of all the moral portraits of Napoleon III., per- 
haps the nearest to the truth is that traced by George 

* " M6moires du Prince Clovis de Hohenlohe " (Tome 8). 
Paris : Louis Conard, 1909. 

t " La Captivity de Napoleon III. en Allemagne. " Souvenirs 
traduits de TAllemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul L6vy. 
Preface par Jules Claretie, de I'Acaddmie Franfaise. Paris : 
Pierre Lafitte et Cie, 191 1, 

184 



THE " LITTLE MAN " 185 

Sand : ' He was, in the fullest sense of the word, a 
crowned literary man.' 

" General Count von Monts' book is a contribution 
to the study of the Emperor's character, which was 
rather enigmatical, resigned, but without bitterness. 
A celebrated diplomatist said of the Emperor : ' He 
is a great mediocrity misunderstood.' The phrase is 
cruel. As Sovereign, he only lacked final success for 
that judgment to be blotted out. 

" I was disgusted at seeing, at a Berlin theatre, in an 
adaptation of an old French f eerie. Napoleon HL, 
caricatured by a low comic actor, dancing a cancan, 
his breast adorned with the grand cordon of the 
Legion d'Honneur. 

Emile de Girardin said of him, symbolising by the 
phrase all his policy : ' The Emperor smokes too 
much.' 

" Forty Years After ! * From Wissembourg to 
Wilhelmshohe ! From Metz to Sedan ! From Sedan 
to Chislehurst ! From Chateaudun to Champigny ! 
From Champigny to Buzenval ! What Calvaries ! 
And manners, ideas, claims, forms of art — men looking 
up at the skies while social realities attract them 
to the earth ! — all is modified in forty years. It 
seems another France. But it is France — France 
immortal, the France of to-day and the France 
of to-morrow, to which it is good, it is wholesome, to 
recall this past of yesterday." 

The Monis Ministry fell in June, 191 1, on a question 
of preparedness for war, and I refer to it only because 
it gave certain Deputies an irresistible opportunity 
of taking a fling at Napoleon III. In the Senate, the 

* The title of a volume by the late M. Claretie. 



i86 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

newly appointed War Minister, General Goiran, ha'd 
precipitated that forced resignation of the Ministry 
by declaring that the French army was without a 
generalissimo ; and four days later, in the Chamber of 
Deputies, M. Andre Hesse retorted by asserting 
that it had been thought that Generals Jamont, 
Bruyere, Hagron and Lacroix had been training them- 
selves for the chief command of the army in war-time. 
" If the generalissimo no longer existed, or if the word 
had no longer the same significance, what remained if 
war should break out? M. Berteaux, when War 
Minister, had expressly assured the House that there 
was a generalissimo. What did it all mean? Had 
they forgotten the sad lessons of 1870? " 

It will be remembered that Napoleon III. was 
the generalissimo in 1870 until he handed over the 
supreme command to Marshal Bazaine. General 
Pedoya shared the opinion of General Goiran, " but 
this," said Claretie, " did not mean that the single 
command should be suppressed. In the war with 
Germany, the enemy had, as generalissimo, not King 
William, but Von Moltke, chief of the general staff. 
When a sovereign was not equal to his task, it was a 
great misfortune for his country, as was proved in the 
case of Napoloen III. In 1870 he was a source of 
weakness to the army, as, although he was at its head, 
he did not dare to give an order." 

General Pedoya's words in 191 1 were, in the main, 
only too true, for, after the first defeats, the Emperor 
was overruled by those surrounding the Empress, 
and treated as a negligible quantity; in M. Emile 
Ollivier's memorable words, he was deposed " par les 
siens " (" by his own "). The orders from Paris 
resulted, either directly or indirectly, in the crowning 



THE " LITTLE MAN " 187 

disaster at Sedan, for which the Emperor personally 
was in no way to blame, although he had to bear most 
of the obloquy. The debate in the Chamber of 
Deputies on the 23rd of June, 191 1, showed that the 
Emperor was not forgiven for faults which he never 
committed. General Pedoya might have studied 
M. Ollivier's fifteenth volume with advantage. He 
had obviously something to learn. 



CHAPTER XIX 

FABLED WEALTH OF THE NAPOLEONS 

The case of the Comtesse de Bechevet v. the son and 
the executors of the late Mr Pierpont Morgan, * 
which came before the Lord Chief Justice and a special 
jury in June 1915, and was settled by mutual arrange- 
ment, revived memories of Napoleon HL The name 
De Bechevet was heard of in the Court of Chancery 
on November 2, 1907, the cause list for that day in 
Mr Justice Parker's court containing the entry : " In re 
Trelawny. Bechevet v. Strode." It was then stated 
that Count Martin de Bechevet, son of Mrs Trelawny 
and the tenant for life, had died, and the Court was 
asked to deal with the funds of the settlement. 
The Mrs Trelawny in question was, prior to her 
marriage, Miss Howard, and with Miss Howard Prince 
Louis Napoleon (afterwards the Emperor Napoleon 
HL) was smitten. That story is too long to be narrated 
here, but it may be said that the lady was very generous 
to the Prince with her money when he was residing 
in London, and that after the Revolution of 1848 
she went to Paris and lived not very far from him. 
Had he married Miss Howard, as she had fondly 
anticipated he would have done, she would have 
become in due course Empress of the French. But 

* The Countess had sold some works of art to the late Mr 
Pierpont Morgan and now claimed a certain sum alleged to be 
due to her. 
188 



FABLED WEALTH OF NAPOLEONS 189 

that was not to be; and she married Mr Clarence 
Trelawny after she had been created Comtesse de 
Beauregard. She died some five years before the 
great war of 1870. 

The centenary of the battle of Waterloo in 19 15 
and the death at the age of one hundred and 
four of an Englishwoman who, when only three 
years old, had seen Napoleon L when the Belle- 
ropho7i anchored in Plymouth Sound, again reminded 
us of the " Petit Caporal " and of Victor Hugo's 
apostrophe beginning w4th " Encor Napoleon, 
encor sa grande visage ! " Few but those who have 
closely studied the innumerable Napoleonic histories 
and legends can be aware that, according to at least 
one French chronicler, the great military genius who 
died on " the lonely rock " as a result of his cancerous 
malady had amassed enormous wealth, which, it was 
asserted, came under two headings — (i) what may be 
termed his " public " fortune and (2) his " private " 
fortune. 

It is recorded that, when he left Paris in the fatal 
month of June, 181 5, he deposited in stocks at Laffitte's 
Bank about ^240,000. His will was proved in 
England, the French Government (Louis XVIIL 
being then King) not allowing this procedure to take 
place in France. Among the delegates were MM. de 
Montholon, Bertrand and Marchand, familiar names; 
but M. Laffitte gave reasons for not handing any of 
the money to those persons or to any others interested 
in the will. Laffitte contended that Napoleon Bona- 
parte, having by a Royal Decree of March 6, 181 5, 
been deprived of all his rights, had no power to dis- 
pose of his fortune. His will, therefore, was null and 
void. But another point was raised : the will was 



I90 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

signed by the testator's Christian name only, " Napo- 
leon," the surname, " Bonaparte," being omitted. 
The securities which had been lodged at Laffitte's 
Bank were finally deposited in the Caisse des Depots 
et Consignations (Deposit Bank). 

In 1837 Marie Louise abandoned her claim upon the 
estate; but the Emperor's will was not settled until 
seventeen years later by a Decree dated Biarritz, 
August 5, 1854, signed by Napoleon III. " The 
budget of 1854," declared this document, " is charged 
with an extraordinary credit of 8,000,000 francs 
(/^ 320,000), with a view to carrying out the testament- 
ary directions of our August Predecessor, the Emperor 
Napoleon I." Of this sum £ 160,000 went in legacies 
to various persons. Napoleon I. left to his son, the 
Due de Reichstadt, his Austerlitz sword, gold dressing- 
case, decorations and other souvenirs,, but the Court 
of Vienna laid its grip upon all of them. After the 
young Duke's death, however, the Vienna Court 
divided them among Napoleon's brothers and sisters. 
Bertrand secured the Austerlitz sword and gave it to 
King Louis Philippe; later it was placed in the 
Tuileries. 

Mention must now be made, but very briefly, of that 
" private " fortune of Napoleon I. which Dupin has 
told us about. That Emperor was himself an econo- 
miser of the truth ; yet he is credited with the dictum : 
" History is a lie which has been agreed upon." 
At no time more than now has it been advisable to 
bear this saturnine saying in mind. Dupin has re- 
corded that in 1818 — three years after the battle of 
Waterloo — the sum of 1 18,000,000 francs (;^ 4,7 20,000), 
representing Napoleon's personal estate, was " paid 
into the Treasury by order of the King." It is added 



FABLED WEALTH OF NAPOLEONS 191 

that originally the " estate " was 200,000,000 francs 
(^8,000,000), but in some way not explained it had been 
reduced to the more modest figure above mentioned. 
Dupin's statement, it will be observed, is very explicit : 
the ^4,720,000 was actually " paid into the Trea- 
sury." Other authorities declare that the " private 
fortune " was non-existent — that the Emperor only 
imagined he possessed it, and that, upon investigation, 
no assets representing any part of this personal hoard 
were discoverable. There seems to have been no 
mistake, however, about the sum (;^ 240,000) 
deposited at M. Laffitte's bank or that mentioned 
in the Imperial Decree (;i^ 320,000) of 1854. 

As with the Uncle, so with the Nephew who died 
so unexpectedly at Chislehurst in the first month of 
1873, less than two years after his release from his 
palatial " prison " at Wilhelmshohe, where he had 
spent seven by no means unhappy months. No further 
back than 1907 absurd statements as to the wealth of 
Napoleon IIL appeared in the English papers, copied 
from a Paris journal. It was affirmed that in 1866, 
four years before the great debacle, the Emperor's 
balance at " Barings " was ;^933,ooo. Now, on 
October 25, 1870, Messrs Baring Brothers wrote to 
the " Times," saying : " At no time have we made any 
investments for account of the Emperor, and we do 
not hold any stocks or objects of value for his 
account." * 

The late Mr Archibald Forbes, in his " Life of 
Napoleon IIL," gave an entirely inaccurate calcula- 
tion of the Emperor's " wealth," which was figured at 
^882,000 in 1866 (the year quoted by the Paris paper 

* Vide " The Empress Eugdnie : 1870 — 1910 " for full details 
of this episode. 



192 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

in 1907). This information, quite illusory, was based 
upon " papers found in the Tuileries after the fall of 
the Empire," including " a document which was a 
bank statement from the house of Baring Brothers, 
of London, with whom Napoleon III. had an account." 
The Empress's " enormous wealth " has been made 
the subject of much ignorant comment, from time to 
time, since the beginning of her widowhood, upwards 
of forty-three years ago. Those are very few in 
number who have even the faintest conception of the 
Imperial lady's means. Even the late Monsignor 
Goddard, for many years the Empress's almoner, was 
totally ignorant on this point. 



CHAPTER XX 

LORD GRANVILLE AND THE EMPRESS- 
LADY COWLEY VISITS THE CAPTIVE 
EMPEROR 

Lord Granville received the seals of the Foreign 
Office in July, 1870, when Mr (afterwards Lord) 
Hammond assured him that there was not a cloud 
upon the European horizon. Yet on the 19th of the 
month the French declaration of war was in the hands 
of the Prussian Government; and on the 2nd of 
August hostilities began at Saarbriicken and were 
witnessed by me. Thirteen years before the war 
Lord Granville, accompanied by his wife, had dined 
with the Emperor and Empress at the Tuileries, and 
in Lord Fitzmaurice's brilliantly written " Life " * 
will be found a highly entertaining account of the 
event. Lord Granville, writing from Paris on April 
8, 1857, says: 

We dined with the Emperor yesterday evening. I sat next 
to the Empress, who is easy to get on with. She inquired 
of me what sort of person the Empress of Russia was. I 
said that I believed that she was clever and well informed, 
but that I had never heard her ask anything but whether one 
had danced much at the last ball. "Mais, voyez-vous," said 
Eugenie, "it is not easy always to find questions to ask." 

I had a long talk with the Emperor in the evening. He 
was civil and pleasant, looked very low, and is evidently much 

*''The Life of Granville George Leveson-Gower, second 
Earl Granville, K.G. : 1815— 1891." By Lord Edmond 
Fitzmaurice. Two vols. Longmans, Green & Co. 1905. 
N 193 



194 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

preoccupied by the action of the secret societies and the plots 
for assassination. He has a vague wish to resettle Europe, 
and thinks it might be done by a cordial understanding 
between Russia, England and France. . . . He was evidently, 
although he denies it, rather taken in by Dizzy. I recom- 
mended him to ask " Tamarang " [Lord Malmesbury's nick- 
name], who is coming here, what he thought of Dizzy, and 
by his answers to judge of what might be expected in the 
way of harmony and consistency from a Tory Government. 
He declares that his wish is to see Lord Palmerston's Govern- 
ment consolidated. . . . 

The evening ended by a lecture on table-turning, etc., in 
which the Emperor and Empress believe. A certain Mr Hume * 
produces hands, raises heavy tables four feet from the ground 
with a finger, knocks on the Emperor's hand from a distance. 
The Emperor is rather pleased at the table coming more to 
him than to others ; but seeing Lady G. and me look incredu- 
lous, he broke off, saying: "They think us mad, and Lord 
Granville will report that the alliance is on a most unstable 
footing." Yours, G. 

On September 17, 1870, Lord Granville wrote 
of the Empress Eugenie to Sir Henry Ponsbnby : 
" Her misfortune is great, although it is much owing 
to herself : Mexico, Rome, war with Prussia." Lord 
Fitzmaurice thus comments on this sentence : " In 
these few words Lord Granville summed up the 
mixed feelings which in the Empress pitied mis- 
fortune and admired undaunted courage, but could 
not entirely forget political responsibility." 

The Empress was now at Chislehurst. " The 
situation thus created was one of extreme delicacy," 
says Lord Fitzmaurice, who, as Under Secretary 
of State for Foreign Affairs, 1882 — 1885 and 

*The late Daniel Dunglass Home (pr. "Hume"), the 
spiritualist, who in the sixties had many friends in London, the 
present Earl of Dunraven and the late Earl of Crawford among 
others. I knew Home very well. — Author, 



LORD GRANVILLE 195 

1905 — 1908, is on his own ground when dealing with 
these and similar knotty points. " The respect due 
to fallen greatness, especially on the part of those 
who had enjoyed the hospitality of the Empire in the 
time of prosperity, beckoned one way. The absolute 
necessity that the Foreign Minister should carefully 
abstain from appearing too much en rapport with 
the little Court of the exiled Monarch pointed in an 
opposite direction, for Count Bismarck was still feeling 
his way in regard to a projected restoration of the 
Imperial Family under German protection. The 
idea was bitterly resented by public opinion in 
England, and every indication of it was jealously 
scrutinised on both sides of the Channel." 

During the captivity of Napoleon III. at Wil- 
helmshohe (September, 1870 — March, 1871) he was 
visited by Lady Cowley, an event thus described 
by her husband in this letter to Lord Granville : 

20 Albemarle Street, W., 
September 21, 1870. 
My dear Granville, — 

You will probably have seen in the papers that Lady 
Cowley has been to see the Emperor, and you may like to 
know what passed on the occasion. Of course there is no 
truth in the report that she went with a message from the 
Empress ; the truth being that, finding herself at Frankfort, 
she did not like to go on without going to see him. 

He was delighted to see her, but quite overcome at first. 
He gave her an account of all his proceedings — how he had 
been deceived both in regard to the preparations for war, and 
more especially with regard to public opinion. He said that 
on leaving St Cloud for the army he had believed that he had 
never been more popular, that the ovation prepared for his 
departure was such that it would have taken him hours to go 
through Paris had he attempted it. He described the total 
demoralisation of the troops on meeting with their first check ; 



196 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

how he was pressed to give up the command, and his desire to 
have retired upon Paris with the army of Chdlons, when he 
thought he might have saved the dynasty, but he was over- 
ruled by the Regency. 

When he came to describe the battle of Sedan his feelings 
gave way completely. The scenes he went through were, 
he said, quite harrowing. He speaks in the most grateful 
terms of the King of Prussia, whom he describes as much 
more dmu than himself at their famous interview. Every- 
thing was done to spare his feelings. It is not true that he 
was purposely taken through the Prussian troops. He wished 
to avoid seeing his own troops prisoners. His admiration 
of the Prussian system, etc., is boundless. He drove through 
miles of them on his way from Sedan, and he describes them 
to have looked as if upon parade. Lady Cov/ley says that 
he looks ill, and he suffers from the cold of Wilhelmshohe. 
He can hold no communication with anyone except by per- 
mission, and all letters pass through the Prussian authorities 
there. The suite told Lady Cowley that he cannot stir beyond 
the grounds, as he is at once exposed to insult, and it seems 
that his journey through Germany was most disagreeable, 
as he was hooted and jeered at wherever he stopped. Lady 
Cowley thinks that he has not abandoned all hope of being 
reinstated. The suite are less sanguine, but hope that the 
dynasty may be preserved. ... I should add that the few 
French soldiers whom Lady Cowley met on the road are loud 
in their execrations of their late master. Sincerely yours, 

Cowley. 

Another surviving personage to whom we are 
happily introduced in this entrancing " Life " of 
the eminent statesman who served his country so long 
and so well is the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, 
who, as I have noted in another chapter, is the oldest 
living friend of the Empress. During the autumn of 
that fateful year she was residing in London and, 
of course, paid frequent visits to the Empress at 
Chislehurst. Lord Granville, we now learn, wrote 
to her as follows : — 



LORD GRANVILLE 197 

Walmer Castle, 

October 22, 1870. 
My dear Madame de Mouchy, — 

Gladstone expressed yesterday his regrets to me that 
partly from his absence from London, and partly from the 
slight personal acquaintance he has the honour of having 
with the Empress of the French, he had not had any opportunity 
of paying any mark of respect to her Imperial Majesty. 

I told him that I had taken the opportunity of a dispatch 
concerning the Emperor to write to her Majesty, and had 
received a most gracious answer, and that I believed the 
Empress was quite aware through you that personally I was 
completely at her Majesty's orders. 

That I had told the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Arthur 
that, although her Majesty declined all general visits, I was 
sure that it would not be disagreeable to her to receive 
members of the Royal Family. 

That I had not asked for an audience because it was 
possible that, if granted to an official person, it might at this 
particular moment be misconstrued both as regards the Empress 
and the Minister. 

Pray tell me your opinion of my conversation. Yours 
sincerely, Granville. 

These valuable and deeply interesting documents 
had never seen the light until they appeared in Lord 
Fitzmaurice's masterly " Life " of Lord Granville, 
nor will they be found in any other subsequently 
published work, and I hasten to express my gratitude 
to the noble lord and to his publishers, Messrs 
Longmans, Green & Co., for so generously allowing 
me to reproduce them here. 

Mr Gladstone's meetings with Napoleon IIL and 
the Empress are referred to by Lord Morley, in his 
" Life " of the famous Liberal statesman. * In 

*"The Life of William Ewart Gladstone." By John 
Morley. Three vols. London : Macmillan & Co. Limited. 
New York : The Macmillan Company. 1903. 



198 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

1866 Mr Gladstone was elected a member of the 
French Institute, and in the following year he 
attended the funeral of the well-known M. Victor 
Cousin, of whom it had been said (writes Lord Morley) 
" that three days in the week he was absurd, three 
days mediocre and one day sublime." 

On the 27th of January, 1867, Mr Gladstone dined 
with the Emperor and the Empress, and on the next 
day with M, Rouher. Mr Gladstone wrote : " Dined 
at the Tuileries, and was surprised at the extreme 
attention and courtesy of both their Majesties, with 
whom I had much interesting conversation." 

Lord Morley writes: "15th July, 1870. — At a 
quarter past four (says a colleague, Mr Grant Duff) 
a Cabinet box was handed down the Treasury bench 
to Mr Gladstone. He opened it, and looking along 
to us said, with an accent I shall never forget, ' War 
declared against Prussia.' " 

An interview which Mr Gladstone had with the 
Empress Eugenie in England some four months 
after the Emperor's death is thus noted by Lord 
Morley: "On May 19, 1873, Mr Gladstone wrote 
to the Queen : ' Mr Gladstone had an interview 
yesterday at Chislehurst with the Empress. He 
thought her Majesty much thinner and more worn 
than last year, but she showed no want of energy in 
conversation. Her Majesty showed much interest and 
a little anxiety about the coming examination of the 
Prince, her son, at Woolwich.' " 

When, in 1880, Parliament was asked to sanction 
a vote of money for a memorial of the Prince Imperial 
in Westminster Abbey a Radical member * brought 
forward a motion against it. Lord Morley says : 

* Mr Briggs. 



LORD GRANVILLE 199 

" Both Mr Gladstone and Sir Stafford Northcote 
resisted him, yet by a considerable majority the 
Radical carried his point. The feeling was so strong 
among the Ministerialists that, notwithstanding Mr 
Gladstone's earnest exhortation, they voted almost 
to a man against him, and he only carried into the 
lobby ten official votes on the Treasury bench," 



CHAPTER XXI 

OUR TRIBUTE TO THE "LITTLE PRINCE" 

Those who knew him best have written the following 
lines in memory of their friend : 

June — July, 1879, 

As we pass through the great iron gate, along the 
avenue, and so, crossing the gravelled space in front 
of Camden Place, into the House, what a host of 
memories arise! It is the year 1871. The Emperor 
arrives from Wilhelmshohe — the Emperor, exiled, 
crushed, his ambition beaten out of him : a sad, 
silent, mysterious man. Years later. A January 
night, with the rain driven into your face. The 
great House as sadly-quiet as the grave. The inmates 
walk noiselessly, as though fearful lest their lightest 
step should waken him who is lying so still up in that 
little bedroom, lighted by two huge tapers. You 
hardly dare breathe as a servant turns the handle of 
the door of that room and bids you enter. By the 
bedside kneel two women praying. Your heart stands 
still as you see what is on the bed — a cold, stiff figure, 
with a crucifix on its breast. Hush ! do not break 
the death-silence. Caesar lies there. 

A cold spring day, and we are grouped on the lawn 
— a goodly concourse. A slim boy speaks; his 
words sway the throng, and when he waves a tricolour 
in the chill air he is greeted with shouts of " Vive 
FEmpereur ! " " Vive Napoleon Quatre ! " 

200 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 201 

The years pass, and the boy, now grown to man's 
estate, fired with a desire to distinguish himself, sets 
out for Africa. He has embarked upon a bold 
emprise, and when he returns, flushed with the 
glory of success, and falls upon his weeping mother's 
breast, even his enemies will rejoice, and, borrowing 
the Empress's phrase, will at least acclaim him 
" un honnete homme." That will be a glad day for 
the Empress-mother ! When the victorious troops 
defile before the Queen at Windsor no face will glow 
more brightly than Prince Louis Napoleon's — Royal 
smiles will be lavished upon him, and all France will 
read the chronicle with admiration. 

The morning is that of Friday, the 20th of June; 
the scene, Chislehurst. 

The sun shines, the birds sing, the supple branches 
bend in the wind, the gorse gleams golden bright. 
All is calm and peaceful. The balm and the sweet- 
ness of Life are upon everything. 

In that great, grim house fronting the common, the 
scene of the Ninth of January One Thousand Eight 
Hundred and Seventy-Three is repeating itself, but 
with a dull intensity. The beautiful Empress is a 
pitiable sight, and the electric wires are throbbing with 
the message, " The Prince Imperial is dead ! 

All is over. It is idle to weep and wring the 
hands. The light is quenched for ever; the young 
life has winged its way back to God, leaving the 
whole world appalled and horror-stricken, one mighty 
Empire widowed and desolate, and a mother's heart 
broken and crushed for ever. The catastrophe is so 
hideous, so overwhelming, so unnatural, that one 
cannot realise it fully yet. The truth may come 
upon us perhaps in its full horror when we see the 



202 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

cofi&n which contains the mangled remains of the grand 
Boy-Prince and Emperor who lost his life for 
England. " When will his glory fade? " Never, 
God willing, never ! Years hence, when we who now 
write and you who now read shall have passed even 
beyond the reach of memory, the story will be told 
how a young lad, who was the Emperor of a great 
people, but who was kept out of his inheritance by 
a foul conspiracy set on foot for their own base 
purposes by the most malignant and unprincipled 
political adventurers; how, we say, this noble boy 
generously offered to risk his life in return for the 
paltry hospitality given him (as it is given to the 
lowest refugee) by England; how he lost it; and 
how his death ruined a great people and broke the 
truest and most tender heart that ever beat in the 
bosom of a Sovereign lady. Boys will hear this tale 
told years hence, and endeavour to picture to them- 
selves how the young hero looked, and the tone of 
his voice, and his gestures, and habits, as we now try 
to imagine how Nelson, Marlborough or Prince 
Rupert may have really been in the flesh. It will not 
be given them, as it has been given us, to recall the 
sweet tones of that voice which is stilled to mortal 
ears for ever, but which is now singing hymns in 
the praise and glory of God as an angel ; it will not 
be given them to know the merry laughter which we 
shall hear never again; it will not be given them to 
know the half-laughing, half-tender glance coming 
from those eyes which are now closed in death, and 
which were incapable of expressing aught save 
innocent mirth, or sympathy and affection. The 
children yet unborn who will read of the tragedy in 
Zululand on the ist of June, 1879, will never be able 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 203 

to picture to themselves the dead young Prince 
Martyr as he really was, the beau-ideal of what a 
gentleman, an emperor, and a Christian should be, 
the sweetest rose in youth's garden, the very type of 
a hero and a martyr. It has been given us to know 
him, and to speak to him, and to touch his hand and 
hear his voice, and knowing as we do that he is now 
an angel as surely as he was a hero, this fact 
emboldens us to say a few words in memory of him 
who was the Hope of France, the pride, prop and 
only son of one of the noblest ladies the nineteenth 
century has seen, and one who possessed that Divine 
glory— 

The splendour of a spirit without blame. 

The story, like all great stories, and like all 
sublime things, is a simple one. It seems but 
yesterday that he was born, and that the cannon told 
expectant France that there was promise and hope 
of glory and peace, insomuch as God had vouchsafed 
to give a son and heir to Napoleon III. It seems, 
alas ! as if children who have been prayed for, and 
ardently longed for, are, as it were, almost robbed 
from Heaven, and that God, when He discovers the 
theft, takes back the treasure to Himself again. 
It was so with the son of the First Napoleon, and it 
has been so with the son of the Third. What man 
of forty does not remember how all France longed 
for the Empress to have a son and heir to perpetuate 
the dynasty; and who cannot recall the unanimous 
exultation which greeted the glad tidings that the 
Empress had been delivered of a male child on the 
1 6th day of March, 1856? His childhood was the 
ordinary childhood of princes; in his case there was, 



304 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

perhaps, more splendour and glory than in most; 
but what most assuredly marked him out as one 
different from his kind was the frank, fearless, loving, 
generous, tender, noble and sympathetic spirit which 
he gave proof of even from the very beginning. 

There is no place for anecdote before the open 
tomb of this murdered boy; but we cannot refrain 
from quoting the words of one who knew the Prince 
Imperial well in his early childhood. " His tender- 
ness of heart," so says this true witness, " was 
so extraordinary as to be almost morbid. Most 
children are carelessly cruel at times, especially boys. 
The Prince Imperial was never so; he would not 
have hurt a fly, and would readily have given his 
jacket to protect a beggar from the cold." So the 
time passed on, partly in splendid gaiety and partly 
in no less splendid charity, and the Second Empire 
sang its song of love and glory to the French people. 
The Terrible Year came, war was declared, and 
the young Prince accompanied his father to the 
front. We will not dwell upon the horrors of that 
campaign, or tell how the young Prince was so 
affected, not by the sense of danger, for he never 
knew what fear was, but by pity for the suffering he 
saw around him, that his nerves received a shock from 
which they never recovered; he would wake up 
at night months after, screaming that he saw men 
dying, and longing to get to them to save them. 
" Ces pauvres soldats ! ces pauvres soldats ! " was 
his cry. How many soldiers' eyes were dry, think 
you, when they read that this gallant boy had met a 
soldier's death? 

Then came exile, and then the greatest sorrow 
his young life ever knew — the death of his father. 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 205 

This almost killed him, and if it had not been for the 
strong mind of the Empress, the little Prince — 
" le petit Prince," as he ever will be affectionately 
termed — would probably have lost his reason or his 
life, perhaps both. Her Majesty, however (in this 
case the tender love of a mother being strengthened 
and sharpened by the wit and intelligence of one 
of the most extraordinarily intellectual women of her 
age), saved her darling from death and insanity, 
and by degrees brought him back to life, and hope, 
and courage. How he distinguished himself at 
Woolwich is known to all. There was no favouritism 
shown him; he was treated like any other cadet, and 
simply passed a brilliant examination as any other 
clever lad might have done. The sneers in the French 
revolutionary broad-sheets are powerless against the 
calm proof and evidence given by the examination 
papers and the answers appended. There ensued 
a period of restless inactivity. The young eagle 
could not bear the idea of not trying his pinions. 
He was restless at Chislehurst, restless at Arenenberg, 
restless at Florence. He was naturally pure-minded, 
and abhorred coarse dissipation, so that many of 
the temptations which usually beset youths of his 
rank were powerless to allure or attract him. 

When the Zulu War broke out, from the very first 
his desire was to go out to the Cape and fight. 
" The right place for an Emperor is the field of 
battle ! " he exclaimed on one occasion to a friend 
of ours. For a long time the influence of his mother 
and friends kept him from risking his precious life; 
but when tidings reached him of the reverses of the 
British arms, and when the tales of heroism came to 
his ears, he laughed prudence, the advice of friends, 



2o6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

and the entreaties of his august mother to scorn, and 
set out to win glory — ^with life, if possible; if not, 
with death. What took place in Africa from the time 
of his arrival up to the time of his glorious death 
we know but little of as yet, except that there, as at 
Woolwich and everywhere else where he was brought 
in familiar contact and intercourse with his fellow- 
men, he was admired, and, what is more, beloved. 
Then the end came. Although we know God must 
be always good. He seems sometimes so cruel, does 
He not? Why take the "little Prince" ? The 
rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds ; but 
the poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb, 
which he had brought and nourished up. Why 
was her one little ewe lamb taken — her all, the one 
hope of his country, who would have grown into 
a lion and defended poor, desolate France? One 
does not dare imagine what may be taking place now 
at Chislehurst. There are misery and anguish so great 
that neither human tongue nor pen can tell of it. 
Think of the thousand recollections that must come 
back to her, when the few trivial recollections that 
come back to us force us to wipe the eyes ! Think 
of the great cruelty of past tenderness which is now 
being- revealed to this stricken mother in her loneliness 
and widowhood ! 

How often 
Have we done this for one another ! Now 
We shall not do it any more. 

But enough; we are treading on sacred ground. 
Suffice it to say that " the poor " woman who had 
nothinor save one little ewe lamb has been bereft of 
this one and only treasure, and that there is one who 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 207 

not many years ago was the first lady in civilised 
Europe, Empress by beauty, grace, wit and rank, 
who is now waiting for death at Camden Place, 
Chislehurst. For him it is well he has met a soldier's 
death, has fallen gloriously, aye, " covered with 
glory," and has gone to join his father; do not pity 
him, but pity her and pity France. 

But again, there is more to be said. Ought he to 
have died thus? Lord Chelmsford assures us, and 
we must believe him, that he had no idea his 
Imperial Highness had gone out on this reconnaissance. 
Be it so; but is not this very confession most damn- 
able.'^ Ought he not to have known, and would 
he not have known, had it been one of our Gracious 
Majesty's sons? Think you the Duke of Connaught 
or the Duke of Edinburgh would have been allowed 
to risk his life in this way, following a mere boyish 
caprice? And if he had, what think you the Queen 
would have said when the news reached her that her 
son's body had been found hacked and mutilated with 
eighteen wounds? Let these words be well weighed 
in Downing Street and at Windsor, as they surely will 
be at Chislehurst. It is sad to disgrace an officer 
and a nobleman, but it is also sad to kill a boy by 
negligence and destroy the whole hope of a country. 
Was not the Prince Imperial doubly, trebly sacred 
to us? Was he not a foreign prince fighting for us 
of his own accord, and above all was he not a mere 
boy, the hope of his country? We do not wish to be 
unjust either to Lord Chelmsford or to the comrades 
of the dear Martyr Prince who ran away and left 
him to die like a dog, merely " looking back " when 
all was over; but we would ask what the British 
public would have said if the life of one of the Queen's 



2o8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

sons had been risked thus, and if we read that 
his comrades had thought more of their own lives than 
of his? All is over, however, and it is perhaps as 
well, after all, that the only tribute laid on the tomb 
of the Martyr Prince should be the tears of a whole 
nation and the broken heart of his widowed and 
desolate mother. 

Since the commencement of the ill-fated war in 
Zululand tragic events have crowded thickly on one 
another; but the latest and saddest shock has roused 
the pulse of nations in one generous throb of sympathy. 
Every tender heart turns with unfeigned pity to the 
thought of that lonely, mourning figure, who sits 
fur-wrapped yet shivering under the icy touch of 
despair, an uncrowned widowed lady bereft of all 
that makes life worth the living. It is but a few 
short weeks ago that the joyous lad, full of eager 
hopes and bright anticipations, kissed his fond 
mother's brow, whispering gay promises and comfort; 
and already the clear, honest eyes are closed in death, 
the limbs lie stark and cold, the voice is dumb 
for ever. Seldom, indeed, do we behold a young 
man more full of promise, of a purer life, a nobler 
character, and it is the very uselessness of the sacrifice 
that rushes with fresh vehemence into our thoughts. 
Though an alien in fact. Prince Napoleon was a 
thorough Englishman at heart; full of the martial 
ardour which was the salient characteristic of his 
family, he yearned to stand beside his comrades in 
arms, and when the wish was granted him, in England's 
service he fell. 

It is not the fitting moment to ask whether British 
soldiers clung to old traditions when they fled and 
left behind them a comrade, heedless of the horrible 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 209 

doom that awaited him, nor whether it was not an 
unpardonable breach of courtesy thus to needlessly 
expose the valuable life entrusted to our care by a 
devoted mother ; suffice it that the brave young fellow 
died a soldier's death, and that his blameless life 
and untimely end have filled all men with admiration 
and regret. Born in the purple, hurled by one 
vicissitude after another from glorious and giddy 
heights of power into the position of a private 
individual, the hopes of France yet centred in his 
life, and on the pale, serious youth, lithe in figure 
and intelligent of aspect, hung the possible existence 
of an empire. From the quiet shades of retirement, 
where the Empress lived a calm and dignified life, 
reports spread abroad of the Prince's studious habits, 
of his soldier-like, abstemious tastes, of his pre- 
dilection for that branch of military science his 
father had affected, of his simple occupations and his 
fresh healthy mind. Keenly affectionate, and of 
an emotional nature, the boy grew up with the ten- 
derest respect for his father, the most chivalrous 
devotion to his mother, and filled with the burning 
desire to serve the best interests of France. His 
companions at Woolwich never tired of speaking 
well of him, of admiring his proficiency in their 
mutual studies, or commenting on his quickness and 
dexterity in games. Alas ! that so bright a promise 
should have been clouded so early, and the sad cloud 
which seemed to have lifted somewhat off his Royal 
mother's life have settled down in gloomier and 
more permanent shadow. The loss of a favourite 
child is a blow hard to bear at all times, but the 
shattering of all earthly prospects, the removal of 
every object of desire and incentive to exertion, is, 
o 



2IO EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

indeed, a lot so terrible as fortunately to be far from 
common. 

The chequered history of the Bonapartes reads 
almost like some wild romance, culminating, as it 
does, after troublous scenes of war, ambition and 
conquest, in the death, grand in its simple solitude, 
of the last and youngest of the race in a foreign 
country among savages, whither the indomitable 
spirit of his ancestors had led him in search of 
adventure and heroic exploit. For him we cannot 
grieve; he died the death he would have chosen— the 
fitting crown of a pure and blameless life; the sur- 
vivors rather it is who demand our heartfelt sympathy. 
The Empress has borne her sorrows with true 
Christian resignation, has been so beloved in the 
adopted country of her exile, has proved herself 
of so noble and unrepining a spirit, that all England 
must share in her grief and pour forth abundant 
tears. To comfort the inconsolable is impossible, 
to rouse interest where there are no interests is a 
herculean task; profound and respectful sympathy 
is all that the most devoted can offer. Words are 
powerless to remove her anguish; time alone can 
blunt the edge of sorrow such as hers. There 
are, at least, no stings of remorse or blame to 
add to her misery; the memory of her young son 
will stand out through all ages sweet and wholesome, 
pregnant with great possibilities, untarnished by a 
single speck of dishonesty or failure. Such lives, 
short as they are, profitless as they may seem, are 
not wasted — they point a moral and leave a name in 
the pages of history for succeeding posterity to 
mark and profit by. The period of youth is a time 
of trial, temptation and too frequently of vice. 



TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 211 

The Prince Imperial was spared all this; his spotless 
soul has returned to its Maker guileless and faithful. 
He had a noble task to perform, and he did it well. 
" He was the only son of his mother, and she was 
a widow." 



CHAPTER XXII 

" IDENTIFYING " THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 

When the Prince Imperial decided to go to the Cape 
in order to witness, not, as was popularly believed, 
to take part in, the operations of our troops in the 
Zululand campaign, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, 
then Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, wrote the 
subjoined letters to Sir Bartle Frere and to General 
Lord Chelmsford : — 

February 2^th, 1879. 
My dear Sir Bartle Frere, — 

I am anxious to make you acquainted with the 
Prince Imperial, who is about to proceed to Natal 
by to-morrow's packet to see as much as he can of the 
coming campaign in Zululand in the capacity of a spectator. 
He was anxious to serve in our army, having been a cadet at 
Woolwich, but the Government did not think that this could 
be sanctioned. But no objection is made to his going out on 
his own account, and I am permitted to introduce him to you 
and to Lord Chelmsford, in the hope, and with my personal 
request, that you will give him every help in your power to 
enable him to see what he can. I have written to Chelmsford 
to the same effect. He is a charming young man, full of 
spirit and energy, speaking English admirably, and the more 
you see of him the more you will like him. He has many 
young friends in the Artillery, and so I doubt not, with your 
and Chelmsford's kind assistance, he will get on well enough. 
I remain, my dear Sir Bartle Frere, yours most sincerely, 

George. 

February 2C^th, 1879. 
My dear Chelmsford, — 

This letter will be presented to you by the Prince 
Imperial, who is going out on his own account to see as much 

212 . 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 213 

as he can of the coming- campaign in Zululand. He is 
extremely anxious to go out, and wanted to be employed in 
our army, but the Government did not consider that this could 
be sanctioned, but have sanctioned my writing to you and to 
Sir Bartle Frere to say that if you can show him kindness 
and render him assistance to see as much as he can with the 
columns in the field, I hope you will do so. He is a fine 
young fellow, full of spirit and pluck, and, having many old 
Cadet friends in the Royal Artillery, he will doubtless find no 
difficulty in getting on, and if you can help him in any other 
way, pray do so. My only anxiety on his account would be 
that he is too plucky and go-head. I remain, my dear Chelms- 
ford, yours most sincerely, George. 

The Duke's letters were read by him in the House 
of Lords. A letter from Queen Victoria to the Duke 
was first published in the " Memoir of the Private 
Life of George Duke of Cambridge," edited by the 
Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, Dean of the Chapels 
Royal, and issued by Longmans, Green & Co. in 
December, igo6. * These frank memoirs of the 
illustrious Duke supply many missing links in the 
story of the Prince Imperial. Thus Canon Sheppard 
writes (vol. ii., p. 68) : 

Among those who were eager to take part in the campaign 
which was to wash out the stain of Isandlana was the young 
Prince Imperial. . . . There were many reasons why he 
should desire to see active service in the field. Young, high- 
spirited and intrepid to the point of recklessness, he chafed 
at the inactivity which the circumstances of his exile entailed, 
and was all on fire for the intoxicating excitement of actual 
war. Perhaps j too, through the smoke of the battlefield he 
saw some dim vision of gallant deeds performed and fair 
fame won, which should make his name glorious in France, 
and win back for his family the Crown' so lately lost. What- 

* The reverend editor gracefully acknowledges his indebted- 
ness to Queen Mary for revising the proofs of his volumes. 



214 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

ever his motives, the Prince Imperial lost no time in making 
his wishes known to the Duke of Cambridge, who, in turn, 
was able to assure him that the Government would set no 
obstacle in the way of his going out as a volunteer attached 
to the staff of Lord Chelmsford. 

As it is this episode in his brief career which has 
enshrined the memory of the Prince Imperial in all 
hearts, I dwell upon it in some detail ; more especially 
because the erroneous belief prevailed in England, 
as well as in France, that the Empress Eugenie's 
son went out as an officer holding a commission in the 
British army. Many are still (191 6) of that opinion. 

The Prince Imperial escaped the Prussian bullets 
at Saarbriicken, to fall the victim of a Zulu ambush 
while wearing British uniform. The Prince and 
Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th (the Staffordshire) 
Regiment, headed a small reconnoitring party; all 
had " unsaddled " and were resting near the Ityotyozi 
River, when they were " surprised " by the blacks, 
and the Prince, failing to mount as quickly as his com- 
panions, owing to the breaking of a stirrup-leather, 
was pierced by assegais. All the others escaped; 
in popular parlance, " leaving the Prince to his fate." 
It was the last act of that tragedy of Bonapartism 
which began with the declaration of war on the 19th 
of July, 1870. The curtain fell on the ist of June, 
1879. 

The fact that the Prince had obtained official 
sanction to join our forces as a " spectator " of the 
operations caused no surprise in this country; his 
friends here approved the young man's action, seeing 
in it a laudable desire to escape from a stagnant 
existence at home, and perhaps to give practical 
shape to his assertion on the lawn at Chislehurst, 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 215 

" I was born a gunner." Some of his own country- 
men took other views, but they held their peace for 
ten years. 

It was not until 1890 that two books, purporting to 
deal historically with the career of the Prince, made 
their appearance in Paris. One, by far the most 
exhaustive, and abounding in documents, is that by 
Comte d'Herisson, entitled " Le Prince Imperial : 
Napoleon IV." The other, by an anonymous author, 
is " La Verite sur le Depart du Prince Imperial 
pour le Zoulouland." No complaint can be made 
of the second of these volumes on the score of 
reticence, for the author undertakes to explain the 
why and the wherefore of the Prince Imperial's action 
in going to the Cape. This is his story in brief. * 

On the 1 6th March, 1879, less than three months 
before his death, the Prince attained the age of 
twenty-three. In the eight and a half years which had 
elapsed since his arrival in England he had com- 
pleted his education at King's College and at the 
Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and was 
regarded as a highly promising officer. One morning, 
a comrade, formerly like himself a Woolwich cadet, 
presented himself at Camden Place, to say good-bye 
to his friend. The visitor was going, with his 
regiment, to Zululand. What wonder, then, that the 
Prince took counsel with his friend as to how he 
himself, " Napoleon the Fourth," could contrive 
to accompany those lucky ones who were bound for 

* The narratives of Comte d'H^risson and the author of 
" La V^rit6 sur le Depart du Prince Imperial pour le Zoulou- 
land " are at variance with the narrative by that intimate 
friend of the young Prince which is given in the chapter " The 
Empress and her Son." 



2i6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

the Cape ? On the following day the Prince went to 
London, ostensibly to see his friend off, but actually 
to request " the Duke " to allow him to " go out " also. 

Observing his cheerful demeanour when he got back 
to Chislehurst, the Empress asked, " What is the 
matter with you, Louis? One would imagine you 
had won the great prize in the lottery." The Prince 
replied that he felt very happy, and woulci explain 
everything the next day : " Not to-night, lest it 
should spoil your sleep." This ambiguous answer to 
her inquiry was somewhat disquieting to the Empress, 
who, the last thing that night, begged her son to tell 
her what had happened : " Otherwise, I shall think 
you are going to Zululand." The Prince made 
a clean breast of it, admitting that he had been to see 
the Commander-in-Chief in order to obtain the 
permission of the Government to accompany the 
Expeditionary Force to the Cape. The Duke of 
Cambridge had promised to send an answer the next 
day. 

On the following morning the Empress had a long 
conversation with her son : 



"You are now," she said, "a man; you are twenty-three; 
and one day you may reign in France. You are, therefore, 
absolutely free to act as your conscience directs. But I am 
your mother, and I have a right to remind you that certain 
duties are imposed upon you. I do not speak of myself. I 
have only you left to love, and I worship you. I have but one 
wish, my boy — to see you happy. But your life belongs to 
your country, to your Party, which is devoted, numerous and 
ardent in your cause ; and you are their hope. You are not 
free. Above all, you must remember that you have to safe- 
guard the interests of all who reckon upon you. Many of 
them have made great sacrifices both for your father and for 
you. Should anything happen to you, you would have placed 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 217 

yourself in the position of a banker who had failed to meet 
his engagements." 

" I have thought much about it," said the Prince. " My 
departure is not simply the freak of a boy who seeks adven- 
tures. It is for the sake of my friends that I am going to 
the Cape. In France I am scarcely known. They only 
remember me as a child ; and I am always spoken of as 'le 
petit Prince. ' Then even my best friends hold different opinions 
about me. Some say I am led by M. Rouher ; others, that I 
am guided by General Fleury ; while some assert that you 
yourself direct me. In fact, I seem to have no personality 
of my own. I cannot have any authority — I shall be considered 
only as an instrument in the hands of others — until I have 
done something. I am wasting my youth in the midst of 
political squabbles, having no immediate interest. If I return 
after having distinguished myself, what strength I shall bring 
to my friends, what authority I shall have ! By the time 
my father had reached my age he had travelled a very great 
deal. L'inaction est perfide. And then what will be my 
position as regards those young Englishmen who have opened 
their ranks to me when they see me again? Could I ever 
retake my place among them if I allowed them to go out and 
run the risk of getting killed without my being among them? 
For the honour of us all, for the glory of our name, let me go 
and win my spurs ! " 

Three days later he was on his way to the Cape. 

Such is the story as told by the anonymous author 
of " La Verite sur le Depart du Prince Imperial 
pour le Zoulouland." 

The tragedy of Zululand in 1879 may be said to 
have passed into history. It was revived in 1905 
by the publication of the reminiscences of the late 
Mr Thomas W. Evans. Mr Evans, according to 
his own statement, published particularly in the 
" British Medical Journal," as well as in the English 
and foreign papers generally, immediately after the 
Prince Imperial's funeral at Chislehurst in July, 1879, 



2i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

examined the body at Woolwich Arsenal, and 
" identified " it as being that of the ill-fated Prince 
by some gold-filling, his own work, in one of the teeth. 
Why was it necessary to call in Mr Evans to "identify" 
the body if it was readily recognisable by others? 
It was stated by several persons, and so reported 
by the English, French and all other newspapers, 
that the Prince was wounded by assegais in eighteen 
places, one assegai piercing the left eye. Comte 
d'Herisson declares that the body was so shockingly 
mutilated as to be unrecognisable, " riddled by 
wounds," and bases this assertion upon the statements 
made to him by English eye-witnesses, the Prince's 
grooms. If this were so, it would explain the 
apparently mysterious calling-in of Mr Evans to 
" identify " the body of the Prince. If it were not 
so, why was Mr Evans requested to examine it? 

Comte d'Herisson is not the only French author of 
repute who is firm on the point of the alleged dis- 
figurement and mutilation of the young Prince's body. 
M. Pierre de Lano, in his work, " L'Imperatrice 
Eugenie," published in 1894, four years subsequent 
to the appearance of Comte d'Herisson's book, says, 
" When the coffin-lid was raised there fell upon 
those present a sort of stupor of despair, of doubt, 
and also of hope. The Prince, indeed, lying in that 
coffin, was unrecognisable, and all present were 
unanimous in declaring that it was not he whom they 
had loved. Was it, then, possible that a mistake 
had been made? The hope that had existed soon 
disappeared. Mr Evans put all doubt at an end by 
affirming, after he had attentively examined the 
mouth of the dead, that he recognised a tooth which 
he himself had attended to some time after the 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 219 

Prince's departure for Zululand." Both d'Herisson's 
and De Lano's works were published serially before 
their appearance in book form, and are still on sale, 
unexpurgated ! Their accuracy was never then 
questioned by Monsignor Goddard or anyone else. 

One Thursday night in June, 1879, they were saying 
in the House of Commons, and at the clubs, that 
the Prince Imperial had been killed in Zululand. 
Next morning the papers, in brief telegrams, con- 
firmed the news which had leaked out the previous 
night. 

On Friday, June 20, 1879, the " Daily News " 
published two telegrams, dated June i and 2, 
from its special correspondent, " Headquarters' Camp, 
Itelezi." The correspondent was the late Mr Archi- 
bald Forbes, who began his message with the words, 
" I have terrible news to give," and went on to say, 
" Prince Napoleon's body was found in a donga, a 
hundred and fifty yards from the kraal. It was 
stripped naked, and lying on the back. There was 
no bullet wound, but there were eighteen assegai 
stabs — two piercing the body from the chest to the 
back, two in his side, and one destroying the right 
eye. The face wore a placid expression." 

In the same journal on July 12, 1879, there was 
an account of the opening of the coffin at Woolwich : 

This scene, so terrible to the assistants, lasted for a con- 
siderable time. On opening the cofifin it was found that the 
operation of embalming the corpse, always diflficult when 
several wounds have been inflicted, had been imperfectly per- 
formed, and that, although decomposition had not proceeded 
to any very great extent, the features of the ill-fated young 
soldier had undergone such serious change as to make the 
work of recognition almost as difficult as it was painful. 
Some of the features had suffered terribly, but all doubt as to 



220 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

the identity of the deceased Prince was set at rest by the 
peculiarity of his dentition. M. Rouher declared himself 
*' satisfied " as to the identity of the body, and the same 
opinion was expressed by many of those who viewed it, 
including- [the late] Monsig-nor Goddard. Uhlmann, the old 
personal servant of the Prince, who carried the sword of his 
dead master, fainted at the sight of the distorted features of 
one he had loved so well and served so faithfully. 

The mortuary chapel, in which the remains were 
deposited for an hour or so before being taken to 
Chislehurst, was cleared of all but the Murat Princes, 
the two Princes Bonaparte (Lucien and Charles), 
the Due de Bassano, M. Rouher, the medical men 
(Barons Larrey, Corvisart and Dr Conneau), Mon- 
signor Goddard and Mr Evans, and then the coffin 
was opened and the " identification " commenced. 

The coffin [said Comte d'H6risson, writing in the " Gaulois " 
before the arrival at Woolwich of the Admiralty yacht 
Enchantress with the remains of the illustrious dead] will be 
placed in a salle draped with black, where the legal constatations 
will take place, and where the coffin will be opened. All 
these formalities depend upon the tenour of the procfes-verbaux 
accompanying- the body ; their contents are not yet known 
in England. . . . My first care, on arriving- at Woolwich, 
was to go on board the Enchantress, and see the chamber in 
which was the coffin. Touching and heart-breaking spectacle ! 
Round the bier were Prince Joachim Murat, Louis de Turenne, 
Count Davilliers and Admiral Duperr6, all standing with bowed 
heads. 

The clergy came to conduct the coffin to the chapelle ardente 
in the armoury of the Arsenal, where the constatation de 
I'identit^ will be made. ... I pass Uhlmann, the Prince's 
servant. He is like one demented. In a voice broken by tears 
and sobs he tells how he saw the Prince's body riddled with 
horrible wounds. The left side was transpierced. The Prince 
had parried the assegais with his left arm, which was 
shockingly mutilated. At the Arsenal it is rumoured that the 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 221 

Empress has refused to allow the constatation de I'identite to be 
made. [This was not so.] 

At 4.30 the Prince of Wales arrives, and remains half 
an hour. In the chapelle ardente fifteen persons, at the most, 
are grouped : they are the Princes of the family, M. Rouher, 
General Fleury, the Due de Mouchy, M. Pietri, Dr Corvisart 
and the other legataires. The coffin is opened, despite the 
rumoured opposition of the Empress. The constatation de 
I'identite takes place amidst profound anguish and behind a 
white veil, which drapes the entrance to conceal as much as 
possible this sad formality. . . . The Royal Dukes and the 
Prince of Wales talk with Prince Murat and M. Rouher. I 
leave with them for Chislehurst. 

Mr Evans, the dentist, who had on several occasions attended 
the Prince, has examined the teeth, in which he recognised 
certain indications which had formerly claimed his attention. 
Other persons have also recognised an old cicatrice in one of 
the hands of the Prince. . . . The Empress [on the day after the 
funeral] asked to see Uhlmann. The faithful servant came, 
and remained with her nearly an hour, answering her questions, 
and satisfying her maternal curiosity. This touching inter- 
view caused the Empress so much feverish excitement that, 
in order to bring the conversation to an end, Dr Corvisart 
was obhged to plead Uhlmann's fatigue. The Empress wished 
also to see the Prince's orderly, Lomas ; she has had a long 
talk with him. The Empress expressed a desire that both 
Lomas and Uhlmann should remain in her service. 

Comte d'Herisson complains that he was not 
invited by Prince IVIurat to enter the chapelle ardente 
(where the body was lying) until after the few 
persons who were allowed to be present had left, 
and when the plumber was soldering down the 
coffin-lid : 

Thus I only know the state of the body by what was told 
me by certain persons who had seen it, and who left the 
chapelle ardente absolument atterrds (absolutely horrified). 
I have said that, although the Prince was completely unrecog- 
nisable, he was nevertheless identified by Mr Ev^ns, who. 



222 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

from his inspection of the teeth, was able to sign a solemn 

declaration that the body was, indeed, that of the Prince 

Imperial. The English medical Press enables us to establish 
the truth upon this point. 

The " Gaulois " of July i6, 1879, contained the 
following : — 

Our London correspondent informs us that the Empress has 
been saddened by the statements which represent the body 
of her son as having been horribly disfigured. The aromatic 
herbs used for the embalming blackened the flesh, which 
has given rise to a belief that there was a decomposition which 
does not exist. The Empress said, " I hope nobody will be 
disquieted about my son's reputation ou dans ses interets." 

Comte d'Herisson thus comments upon the 
Empress's reported observation : 

The body, then, was not decomposed? How was Mr Evans 
able to examine the Prince's jaw? And if he was able to 
accomplish this tour de force, by what illusory phenomenon 
was he able to recognise as his own the work of three other 
dentists? It is, however, this recognition which permitted him 
to solemnly affirm that it was the Prince's body ! 

The " Daily News " of Tuesday, July 15, 1879, 
reported : 

The document completing the formal identification of the 
remains of the late Prince Louis Napoleon was legally signed 
yesterday by the persons appointed for that purpose — viz. 
Prince Murat, the Due de Bassano, Mr Evans and Dr Corvisart. 
Dr Conneau testified to recognising a wound on the hip 
which the Prince received from a fall when a child. The 
injury left a lump of coagulated blood. Mr Evans (who, when 
he saw the remains, held the features in such a manner that 
Prince Murat and others were better able to recognise them) 
testified to the identity of certain teeth which he had filled. 
The coffin was sealed in the presence only of the executors 
named in the will. Before this was done a quantity of 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 223 

the Prince's hair was cut off for the Empress. Lomas, the 
Prince's orderly, who was sent out to assist in finding the 
body and bring it into the British camp, has given some 
further details in respect of the matter. He says the body 
was found lying in a semi-recumbent position on a slope, 
the arms being pressed close to the chest. There are in all 
eighteen wounds, five of which would have been fatal. There 
was a wound in the foot, and another in one of the eyes, as 
though an assegai had been thrown and struck him there, and 
subsequently been wrenched out. It was these wounds which 
caused the discoloration and swelling of one side of his 
face, the flesh apparently having been roughly torn when 
the assegai was withdrawn. There was also a slight wound 
in the mouth, and a tooth knocked out, apparently by the 
thrust of an assegai. 

In the " Daily News " of July 14, 1879, the Paris 
correspondent reported that the " Figaro " devoted 
two pages to " revised and supplementary corre- 
spondence from its late correspondent in Zululand," 
M. Deleage, who returned to Europe with the Prince's 
body. Deleage and others went out to find the 
three bodies : 

The first body (that of a trooper) they found had the head 
covered with a piece of flannel. Deleage comments on the 
fact that the savages themselves were so shocked at the 
mutilation of the dead man's face that they sacrificed a scrap 
of flannel to conceal the horror. Two hundred yards farther 
the body of the Prince was found. It was quite naked. The 
stiffened arms were a little crossed upon the breast, and the 
head slightly inclined to the right. There was no trace of 
sufi"ering on the face. The mouth was slightly open, the left 
eye shut, the right eye had been crushed out by an assegai. 
There were seventeen or eighteen wounds, all in the front, 
and according to Zulu custom the stomach was cut open, but 
there was a very slight incision, and the entrails did not 
protrude. Dr Scott and Dr Robertson agreed that the Prince 
was killed by the assegai that pierced his right eye and 



224 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

penetrated the brain, and that all the subsequent wounds were 
inflicted on a dead body. 

In a previous dispatch to the " Figaro " M. Deleage 
stated that he had " vainly tried to close the Prince's 
remaining eye, which yet reflected gentleness and 
goodness." 

On July 5, 1879, Archibald Forbes telegraphed 
from Landsman's Drift an account of the battle 
of Ulundi, which was published in the " Daily 
News " of July 28. In this telegram Forbes 
described some of the barbarities practised by the 
Zulus upon our troops. " In the long grass Buller's 
men found three comrades who had fallen in a 
reconnaissance the previous day, mangled with 
fiendish ingenuity, scalped, their noses and right hands 
cut off, their hearts torn out, and other nameless 
mutilations." 

Dr Gannal, the eminent Paris embalmer, asked for 
his opinion, wrote, under date March 12, 1890: 

It is a question of the death of an officer abroad as the 
result of wounds in the principal organs — the heart, lungs, 
etc. — whose body was embalmed and then brought to Europe. 
You ask me if it is possible that, merely by the opening of 
the coffin some days after the embalming, the body could 
become black and absolutely unrecognisable, as it was found 
to be when, two months afterwards, the official recognition 
took place. To that question I reply, no. . . . If, however, 
the embalming had not been performed with all due care it 
would have been found that the body was brown, green in 
places, swollen by gases, the tissues softened; in one word 
unrecognisable perhaps, but not black. . . . You also ask me 
if it is possible to open the mouth of a dead person two months 
after the embalming, in order to see if the molars had been 
filled with gold. If the body has been well preserved 
(embalmed), I answer, no; if it is in a state of decomposition, 



IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 225 

yes, but it would be a dangerous operation, which few of my 
colleagues would consent to perform unless they should be 
medecins legistes, who make a specialite of these painful 
researches. ... I do not believe a dentist competent to con- 
scientiously perform such an operation. 

Comte d'Herisson asserts that J. Lomas and 
J. Brown (both in the Prince Imperial's service as 
grooms) told him that, on the discovery of the body, 
they had " recognised " it as that of the Prince : 

They were deceived. Neither Lomas nor Brown was the 
first to " recognise " the Prince, for the reason that when 
the body was found it was hardly recognisable. . . . The 
body, completely naked, bore seventeen assegai wounds, some 
in the face and some in the chest. The assegai is a terrible 
weapon, making frightful wounds. . . . Only imagination can 
supply the details which are lacking of the Prince's death. 
Once he and his companions in misfortune were killed they 
were all treated alike. Thus the Prince, like the two others, 
was despoiled of his clothes ; the Zulus, in accordance with 
their custom, disembowelled him ; for, contrary to Lomas's 
statement, they had plenty of time to perform this barbarous 
operation. . . . Lomas, like a faithful and devoted servant, 
repeated what he had been told to say. Never could he have 
seen in a head from which one eye had been wrenched, as 
well as a part of the cheek, while one lip was smashed, and 
there were several other wounds, a face " full of grace, and 
almost smiling." If the face was in that condition, why was 
no photograph taken? That was the best way to prove the 
identity of the dead Prince. . . . The English had a well- 
organised photographic service in the war with China in 
i860. Twenty years later they must have had all facilities 
for photographing the body of the Prince if it had been con- 
sidered desirable. We know what the sentiments of Europe 
will be when it is found that the coffin contains a body so 
completely mutilated [as that of the Prince Imperial]. 

My friend Monsignor Goddard declared, after 



226 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

seeing the body, that it was not in any way disfigured. 
I saw the coffin finally closed before it was taken 
from Woolwich to Chislehurst. It was considered 
inadvisable to permit the Empress to take a last look 
at the remains of her heroic son. Why? 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 

The late Field-Marshal Sir John Lintorn- Simmons 
(who directed the Royal Military Academy at 
Woolwich during the Prince Imperial's studentship) 
was the only personage of note who came forward by 
name in our Press to support the Empress when 
she was vehemently attacked. In the " Nineteenth 
Century " (September, 1892) Sir John published an 
article much of which was devoted to a reply to 
a criticism by Archibald Forbes of the scabrous work 
entitled " An Englishman in Paris " which had 
appeared in the previous number of the same review. 
I quote an example of Sir John Simmons' strenuous 
advocacy : 

The Empress knew perfectly well, before the rupture with 
Prussia had resulted in war, that the Empire had nothing- to 
gain by it, if successful; but, if success were not to follow 
the French Eagles, the result would be, in all human probability, 
disastrous to the Empress, and bring about the ruin of the 
Emperor, or herself, and the prospects of her much-beloved 
son. How, then, is it probable that she did not share the 
well-known desire of the Emperor to avoid war? It is certain 
that a cause of the war must be sought for elsewhere than 
by attributing it to the Empress, and it is probable that revela- 
tions which may possibly emanate from the great ex-Chancellor 
in Germany [Prince Bismarck] may, at some future date, 
throw a light which will not only remove the charge from the 
shoulders of the Empress, but place it on much broader and 
stronger shoulders, that are more capable of sustaining it. 
227 



228 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

But Bismarck made no such " revelations." 
Perhaps they are contained in the MSS. at the Bank 
of England, where they are likely to remain until 
the death of William II., the " Bloody " Kaiser of 
1914-1916. 

If Sir John Lintorn- Simmons threw himself into 
the discussion with natural and, as all will agree, com- 
mendable chivalry, he as certainly wrote with parti pris. 
He would have been better able to demolish the 
" Englishman in Paris " had he taken the trouble 
to learn the views of those who wrote with full 
knowledge and based their arguments upon historical 
documents and facts. The Empress Eugenie's 
friend who assisted her Majesty in the preparation 
of her detailed and convincing reply to her 
"calumniators"* overlooked the testimony of one who 
probably would have strained a point to exhibit 
the Empress in the most favourable light possible — 
the late Mr Blanchard Jerrold. He wrote a "Life" 
of the Emperor, in four volumes, and a glance at the 
title-page shows how well he was equipped for the 
task. His work is entitled " The Life of Napoleon 
III., derived from State Records, from Unpublished 
Family Correspondence, and from Personal Testi- 
mony " ; and it was published in 1882 by Longmans, 
Green & Co. There was a certain appropriateness 
in the publication of the work by that firm, for did 
not the Empress acquire her home at Farnborough 
Hill from the late Mr Thomas Longman? 

The question of responsibility for the war is 
treated by Mr Jerrold (vol. i., pp. 474-475) : 

*Vide "The Empress Eug6nie : 1870— 1910." London: 
Harper & Brothers. New York : Charles Scribners' Sons. 
1910. 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 229 

All the testimony agrees in presenting the Emperor as the 
first to welcome hopes of peace and the last to consent to the 
arbitrament of war. At the night-council at St Cloud the 
war-party was in force. It was in the ascendant in the 
Palace and among the tried friends of his dynasty. It had 
the sympathy of the Empress, whose impulsive nature resented 
vehemently the tricks and the open insults to which M. de 
Bismarck, their ungenerous and unchivalrous guest, had 
subjected her adopted country. It has been said that the 
Empress urged on the war-party, and was indeed the chief 
instigator of the war, because she believed it would secure 
the return of the throne to her son. Her heroic conduct after 
the fall of the dynasty, and when she was asked to save it 
at the expense of the honour of France, should have shielded 
her from this charg-e. She approved the war because she 
believed that the honour of France demanded it, but none . . . 
save for the moment, believed that her share in the respon- 
sibilities which weig"h upon those who governed France in 
July, 1870, may be traced to other than patriotic motives. 
The French war-party wrought an evil of terrible magnitude. 
All who were of it must bear a share of the blame. 

" The war-party," says Blanchard Jerrold, " had 
the sympathy of the Empress," and she " must 
bear a share of the blame," like all the rest. With 
the citation of this frank assertion of an impartial 
historian, who yet wrote, so to speak, " to order," 
I pass on, remarking that in view of Mr Jerrold's 
honestly expressed logical opinions, based on a 
presumably accurate knowledge of the facts, 
the inflated assertions and nonsensical assumptions 
of the late Mr Thomas W. Evans (the Imperial 
dentist) to the contrary can only be regarded as vain 
talk. 

In truth, the " war-party " ^ carried everything 
* Mr Jerrold seems to have been unaware that the "war- 
party" really comprised all France; so, at least, recent 
eminent authorities, including M. OUivier, assert, supported by 
documentary evidence. 



230 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

before it, even ignoring the sound advice tendered to 
France by the Government of Queen Victoria, the 
Sovereign to whose friendship and protection the 
Empress Eugenie and Napoleon III. owed so much. 
Mr Jerrold writes (vol. iv., pp. 469-470) : 

When the Council met on the morning of July 13th a 
letter from Lord Lyons (British Ambassador) was placed in 
the Emperor's hands, in which he (the Ambassador) expressed 
urgently the hope of the British Government that France would 
be satisfied with the withdrawal of Prince Leopold (from 
his candidature for the Spanish throne). This communication 
inclined the Ministers to peace, but the war-party would not 
yield. 

The allegations, briefly formulated, were : 

1. That the Empress had favoured the Declaration of War 
by France. 

2. That, when the Emperor expressed the strongest possible 
desire to return to Paris with his son, after the defeats of the 
French troops in the battles of the first week of August, the 
Empress protested against his return, unless he could come 
back to the capital as a conqueror ; and 

3. That she kept the Prince Imperial so short of money that, 
in a fit of sheer desperation, he went to Africa to find, as it 
unfortunately happened, a martyr's death at the hands of the 
Zulus. 

The gravest charge was that the Empress strongly 
objected to the Emperor and the Prince Imperial 
returning to Paris when Napoleon III. found every- 
thing going against him. Had she permitted her 
consort and their son to go back from the front,* 
where the Emperor was worse than useless, and 
the poor little Prince (aged fourteen !) in the way, 
the Prussians would not have " captured " the 
Emperor at Sedan. The Empress may fairly reply 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 231 

that the Paris populace would have killed him, but 
it is not altogether unreasonable to suppose that 
Napoleon III. would have had at least as good a 
chance of escape as his consort, who left Paris 
without molestation. As I showed in my first part 
of this trilogy, she has rebutted all the accusations, 
and her answer, as put forward by me, was accepted 
by the Press generally as convincing, although her 
views conflicted with those of the Emperor. 

M. Emile OUivier sided with the Emperor, but his 
opinions underwent a certain amount of modification 
of late years. We have been told by M. James de 
Chambrier (" Entre I'Apogee et la Declin " *) that 
it was proposed, at one of the meetings of the 
Academic, to award the Gobert prize to M. Pierre 
de la Gorce, whose history of the Second Empire is 
highly valued in England as well as in France. The 
proposal was opposed by Ollivier on the ground 
that M. de la Gorce, in the work referred to, 
had asserted that the Empire was responsible for the 
war. " It was not the Empire," said Ollivier, " but 
Prussia, which wanted the war, which rendered it 
inevitable, and forced France to declare it." Ollivier 
denounced all that De la Gorce had said on the 
subject in his work, some passages of which, added 
Ollivier, are " suitable for incorporating in a manual 
for German schools under the patronage of the 
Kaiser." The majority of the members of the 
Academic present evidently shared Ollivier's views, 
and awarded the Gobert prize, not to De la Gorce, 
but to General Bonnal, a deservedly popular writer 
on military subjects in 1916. 

* Paris: A, Fontemoign. 1908, 



232 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

M. de la Gorce writes, in his " Histoire du Second 
Empire " (vol. i., p. 2( 



A very honourable reserve, caused by pity for misfortune, and 
also by fidelity to an august Empress, has veiled and softened 
most of the public evidence which might accuse her. But 
all the manuscript correspondence, all the private papers, give 
this clear impression — that, on the French side, the Empress 
was the principal artificer of the war. 

The Due de Gramont, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs in 1870, in " La France et la Prusse avant la 
Guerre," speaking of the transfer of power to the 
Empress, says : 

This measure was as fatal to the Emperor as to the Empress, 
for it is incontestable that it would have been better for 
both, and especially for the country, if the powers of the 
Regency had not been delegated (to the Empress) until the day 
when the Emperor should have quitted French territory. * 

What M. de Gramont evidently means is that the 
Decree of July 26, 1870, conferring upon the Empress 
the functions of Regent immediately the Emperor 
should have left the capital, had the result of 
creating in France that double Government of which 
Napoleon III. spoke. There is evidence, not that 
the Empress precipitated the war, but that the 
Emperor did not wish it. 

In his "Notes pour servir a I'Histoire de la Guerre 
de 1870 " t M. Alfred Darimon, who was one 
of the famous " Five " of the Opposition, asserts 
that as far back as the Crimean War, in which the 

* When the Emperor "quitted French territory" it was 
as a prisoner. 

t Paris : Librairie Paul Ollendorf, 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 233 

French played so prominent a part (luckily for us), 
the Empress cherished the hope of one day exercising 
the duties of Regent. The Emperor was bent upon 
proceeding to the scene of operations in the East, 
and assuming the command of his army; but his 
ideas were opposed by his Ministers. The only 
person who supported the Emperor in his intentions 
was the Empress, who expressed her views upon 
the subject very forcibly to Queen Victoria. The 
Queen, however, successfully argued to the contrary, 
and her advice prevailed. , 

Darimon affirms that the Empress was the cause 
of all the embarrassments which resulted from the 
war with Italy. She was Regent once more in 1865, 
when the Emperor went to Algiers for his health. 
Thereafter, there was a numerous and powerful 
" Empress's party " at the Tuileries. 

In " The Historians' History of the World," 
published by the " Times " in 1907, is this passage 
(vol. XV., p. 518): 

. . . Napoleon wavered. For a cause like this (the Hohen- 
zollern candidature) to begin war with the united power of 
the North German Confederation, perhaps even with all 
Germany, appeared to him a dang^erous proceeding. For a 
long time he could come to no decision, but listened while 
all and sundry gave him their views, and brooded over them 
in his wonted fashion. In a short time peace was all but 
decided upon. But in the night of the 14th to 15th July, in 
which the decisive sitting of the Ministerial Council was held 
at St Cloud, the Ministers Gramont and Leboeuf, both anxious 
for war, and the Empress Eugenie, instigated and instructed 
by the Jesuits, urged on the Emperor no longer to take these 
perpetual rebuffs and humiliations from Prussia, but, for the 
safety of his throne, which rested on the respect of the French 
people, to declare war, and, in alliance with the great Catholic 
nations, fall on heretic Germany. The Emperor finally yielded, 



234 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

manifestly with a heavy heart, and the Empress cried triumph- 
antly, " This is my war ! * With God's help we will overthrow 
Protestant Prussia." 

The sentence " in alliance with the great Catholic 
nations " does not seem particularly apt. Austria 
and Italy had undertaken to support France, con- 
ditionally; these were the only possible " alliances," 
and the fact that Napoleon III., or rather his 
advisers, would not consent to suspend military 
operations until 1871 (the period suggested by 
Austria) decided those Powers to hold aloof. 

The view that the Emperor was strongly opposed 
to the declaration of war is also taken by the author 
of " An Englishman in Paris," whom many have 
erroneously supposed to have been the late Sir 
Richard Wallace ! The author of that work (actually 
a Mr Vandam) asks : 

Was Napoleon III. steeped in such crass ignorance as not 
to have had an inkling- of all this ? Certainly not ! But he 
was weary, body and soul, and, but for his wife and son, he 
would, perhaps willingly, have abdicated. He had been 
suffering for years from one of the most excruciating diseases, 
and a fortnight before the declaration of war the symptoms 
had become so alarming that a great consultation was held 
between MM, N^laton, Ricord, Fauvel, G. See and Corvisart. 
The result was the unanimous conclusion of those eminent 
medical men that an immediate operation was absolutely 
necessary. Curiously enough, however, the report embodying 
this decision was only signed by one, and not communicated 
to the Empress at all. It may be taken for granted that, 
had she known of her husband's condition, she would not 
have agitated in favour of the war, as she undoubtedly did. 

* The Empress, I repeat, emphatically denies that she ever 
used these words. Vide " The Empress Eugenie : 
1870 — 1910." Harpers, 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 235 

Is it not significant of the anxiety of our neighbours 
and allies to solve the question, " Who was respon- 
sible for the war? " that writers of greater or 
lesser eminence were still, and in 19 16 are, contri- 
buting illuminating essays on this disputed point 
to the leading French periodicals? In two closely 
reasoned articles, highly documentes, in " Le Corre- 
spondent " (October, 1908), M. Henri Welschinger, 
of the Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 
brought to light a variety of interesting political 
and diplomatic facts. Although he did not per- 
petrate any " injuries " upon the Empress — far from 
it — he asserted that it was undeniable that she 
exercised a preponderating influence in regard to 
the declaration of war. For at least a year she had 
been much perturbed respecting the stability of the 
reign : 

The elections of 1869, which had strengthened the Republican 
party and undeceived many official candidates ; the incessant 
agitation in the capital ; the violent attacks of the opposition 
press ; the success of Rochefort's pamphlet * ; the Emperor's 
uncertain health; the little confidence which she had in a 
liberal policy ... all these grave matters led the Empress 
to believe that, without an extraordinary coup of luck, the 
days of the Empire were numbered. She eagerly seized the 
opportunity which the candidature of a German Prince seemed to 
present. She evidenced an unlimited confidence in the French 
forces, and considered them superior to those of Prussia. 
She thought that the French, who had not forgiven the 
Prussians for their brilliant success in 1866, would be happy 
to revenge themselves for Sadowa, and to put an end to the 
ambitious designs contemplated by the victors. She was 
certain that a victory would consolidate the Imperial throne 
and permit her son, whose precocious intelligence and generous 
character she appreciated, to succeed Napoleon III. without 

*" La Lanterne." 



236 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

any difficulty. She eagerly received also the presumptuous 
assurances of the Bonapartist Press, which was directed by 
Jerome David, Granier de Cassagnac, Clement Duvernois and 
Dugue de la Fauconnerie. 

The Empress had no doubt but that the whole country would 
consider the design of placing a Hohenzollern upon the throne 
of Spain as an insult and a defiance. She thought that, if the 
Imperial Government succeeded in humiliating and defeating 
Prussia, it would give immense satisfaction to all, and would 
so increase its influence at home and abroad as to enable it 
to dominate the situation. The mad enthusiasm with which 
the Due de Gramont's declaration on the 5th of July had been 
received, deceived her as to the real trend of public opinion. 
Lord Granville, who had done all in his power to prevent 
a catastrophe, had, through Lord Lyons (British Ambassador), 
informed the Imperial Government that it would incur an 
immense responsibility if it widened the causes of the quarrel 
by refusing to accept the renunciation of Prince Leopold of 
Hohenzollern 's claims, a renunciation verbally approved by 
the King of Prussia. 

Lord Granville added that the French Minister of Foreign 
Aifairs had no right to say that the British Government 
appeared to admit the legitimate character of the French 
complaints. In Lord Granville's opinion the Cabinet of the 
Tuileries was wrong in taking the responsibility of a purely 
formal quarrel, since, as a matter of fact, it had obtained 
satisfaction. This clear impression Lord Lyons had made 
known, on the morning of the 13th of July, at St Cloud, by 
a dispatch which one of the Secretaries of the British Embassy 
had placed in the hands of the Emperor, at a sitting of the 
Council, and in presence of the Empress. But J6r6me David, 
Clement Duvernois and their party, were then more powerful 
than Lord Lyons and Lord Granville, although they spoke 
in the name of Queen Victoria. The Due de Gramont's fresh 
demand, made at the pressing desire of the Empress, by which 
the King of Prussia was invited to prevent, by writing. Prince 
Leopold from revoking his decision at any time, surprised 
and profoundly grieved our allies {i.e. the English), . . . The 
Emperor was not as much disposed for war as the Empress. 
More than once he had told his First Minister, Emile Ollivier, 
that he had decided to do nothing. 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 237 

On the very evening (July 14) when the Council at St Cloud 
decided upon declaring" war, the Emperor, as Marshal 
MacMahon narrated, still sought every kind of pretext to 
avoid war. A sudden attack of his malady, la pierre, com- 
pelled him to leave the Council, and he fainted. The doctors, 
in the interest of the Emperor, and also of the Empire, ought 
to have warned their patient of his danger; and who knows if 
the Empress, confronted by such a revelation, would not have 
hesitated to embark upon an adventure the most to be dreaded 
and the most uncertain? When Napoleon had recovered 
from the syncope into which he had fallen, and returned to 
the Council, the Ministers — or some of them, at least — who 
had appeared anything but decided to provoke immediate 
hostilities, had been brought, under pressure of the eloquent 
objurgations of the Empress, to take the most terrible of parts. 
. . . The Emperor was obliged to give in. This time " the 
iron dice " were well thrown. 

The wild enthusiasm with which the Declaration of 
War was greeted soon subsided. Even the bellicose 
courtiers at St Cloud betrayed alarm — those courtiers 
who had shouted for war and stigmatised as traitors 
the more sober-minded people — lamentably few in 
number, alas ! — who had counselled peace. Mon- 
signor Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, whom the 
Communards shot, went to St Cloud to witness 
the swearing-in of several bishops; he noticed that 
the Empress was a prey to the most sinister pre- 
sentiments. The affair of Saarbriicken, in which 
the Prince Imperial had shown so much pluck, 
momentarily reassured her. " He will be lucky in 
war, like the Bonapartes," she said. " Who," asks 
M. Welschinger, " would have believed at that 
moment that the reverses which were close at hand 
would cause the Imperial throne to crumble and 
send the Empress into exile — that the prelate who 
consoled her would be shot by scoundrels, and that 



238 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

the young Prince, the object of so much solicitude, 
would one day fall under the assegais of savages 
at the Cape? " 

That the question of war between the two nations 
was bruited in Germany long before it was revived 
with such appalling consequences to France by the 
Hohenzollern incident is demonstrated by Prince 
Clovis von Hohenlohe in his " Memoirs," The 
Prince writes, under date, Munich, August 13, 1866 
(p. 249, vol. i., French edition, 1908) : " European 
politics depend to-day upon the decision of the 
King of Prussia. Bismarck is disposed to cede 
to the desires of Napoleon and to give him Saar- 
briicken, Luxemburg, and a part of the Bavarian 
Palatinate; but to this the King is opposed. Unless 
the King assents to this there will be war between 
France and Prussia. We [i.e. Bavaria) shall march 
then against Prussia with France and Austria." 

It had been, of course, the belief — at all events 
the hope — of Napoleon III. that, should he go to 
war with Prussia, he would have the support of the 
South German states. This belief, or hope, was, 
however, based upon the contemplated alliance with 
Austria. Rather more than two years later (April 28, 
1868) Prince Clovis wrote from Berlin: "As to 
war with France, it is as impossible to predict 
anything with certainty as to prophesy what the 
weather will be like in July; for France will consider 
twice before crossing swords with Germany. The 
French plan of campaign is as follows : — To throw 
50,000 men into the South of Germany in order 
to secure neutrality. The Southern States will then 
have a mauvais quart d'heure, for Prussia will 
immediately mass 200,000 men at Coblenz, and a 



THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 239 

few days afterwards she will have 500,000 men and 
direct them upon Paris; but these operations require 
time. If we are in a position to resist France, nothing 
could be better." What De Chambrier says : 

" The accusations brought against the Empress 
a propos of that terrible war which resulted in the 
end of everything for her — accusations which have 
long weighed upon one whose name will always 
mingle with the glories and the misfortunes of 
France — have already been weakened by the evidence 
even of those adversaries whose diplomatic and 
military victories caused the fall of the Second 
Empire. Among that evidence are the belated 
admissions of Bismarck respecting that Ems telegram 
which made the war of 1870 inevitable. Then 
came the ' Propos de Table ' of Busch, the Chan- 
cellor's confidant; the recent Memoirs of Count 
Bernstorff, and the still more recent Memoirs of 
Prince von Hohenlohe. Those show the effort, the 
ruse of the soldiers and diplomatists who snatched 
from the King of Prussia his consent to the war with 
France. That war was their work, as had been the 
Danish and Austrian wars of 1864 and 1866." 

In this sweeping manner are the " accusations " 
against the Empress disposed of by M. James de 
Chambrier. Whether we agree (as many will) with 
his opinions, or whether we question their absolute 
accuracy (which certainly I am not prepared to do), 
they deserve to be treated with respect, for this 
writer boasts a longer and more intimate acquaintance 
with the events of the Second Empire than that 
possessed by many French authors who are better 
known in this country. 



240 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Not to quote other authorities, we have Lord 
Malmesbury's assertion that at the Council held 
at St Cloud on the 14th of July, 1870, the Empress 
said war was " an unavoidable necessity if the 
honour of France was not to become an empty 
word." But, whatever opinion may have been formed 
respecting the Empress's direct or indirect share 
in the production of the cataclysm of 1870, we may 
all hope that history will show the illustrious Exile 
at Farnborough Hill in, as her consort happily 
phrased it, " her true colours." The Empress has 
been heard in her own defence (in my first volume). 
None can honestly assert that she has not therein 
effectively answered her " accusers." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LOUIS NAPOLEON IN LONDON 

Madame Doche had created in Paris the part of 
Marguerite Gautier in " La Dame aux Camelias," 
with Charles Fechter as Armand Duval. Full of 
her triumphs, the Sarah Bernhardt of the forties 
came to London, and, as she was beautiful as well 
as talented, she soon attracted the attention of 
the " dandies " of the period. Two of her admirers 
were (of course) Prince Louis Napoleon and the 
Lord Pembroke who was the brother of Sidney 
Herbert. Lord Pembroke was rich and extravagant; 
Prince Louis Napoleon was, by comparison, a pauper. 
His income was about ;^28oo a year, most of 
which went in gambling at " Crockford's," the 
notorious " hell " in St James's Street, and to keeping 
alive the adventurers and conspirators who rightly 
believed in the ultimate success of the heir to the 
Imperial throne. 

Doche quite took Louis Napoleon by assault, and 
her beauty, wit, and charm at once subjugated this 
Caesar in embryo, who one day sent word to her that 
" he could not marry her, because his name was 
not his own, but belonged to a dynasty and a cause, 
while his means were limited." He assured her, 
however, that, "if she would look kindly on him," 
he would promise never to marry, would share 
with her all that he then possessed, and in the event 

Q 241 



242 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of his ever becoming Emperor of the French (which, 
at the time, was highly improbable) would provide 
for her. 

Doche was an amusing, but a very silly woman. 
She replied to the Prince that, although she was 
highly flattered by his offer, he must give her time 
for reflection, for she had just received from Lord 
Pembroke a most splendid and generous pro- 
position, which, as " she had her bread to earn " 
(her own words) and her future to provide for, she 
could hardly afford to reject without due con- 
sideration. Louis Napoleon was very angry at the 
woman's stupidity, and endeavoured, but in vain, 
to pick a quarrel with Lord Pembroke, who simply 
laughed at him, and then won £700 from him 
at cards. Thus did poor, silly Doche (who used 
to tell the story with tears in her beautiful eyes) 
lose one of the most marvellous chances that ever 
offered itself to a disciple of Phryne. But she lost 
Lord Pembroke, too, by her stupidity, and it was this 
last mistake of hers which created the Montgomery 
family. Knowing the noble lord's reckless dis- 
position, impatience of denial, and splendid, but 
mad, generosity, she thought it would be clever 
to play fast and loose with him in the hope that, at 
length exasperated, he might perchance even surpass 
himself in Quixotic folly and lay at her feet half of 
Eldorado. 

But Pembroke was not used to being trifled with, 
though he was quite ready to pay handsomely for his . 
caprices, and doubtless coincided with Tom Moore 
when he sings, under the transparent nom de plume 
of " Thomas Little " : 



LOUIS NAPOLEON IN LONDON 243 

Doris, you little rosy rake, 

That heart of yours I long to rifle ; 

Come, give it me, and do not make 
So much ado about a trifle ! 

So one morning he thus explained the situation to 
a friend : " I have invited Doche to have supper 
with me at Richmond to-night. I have asked her 
over and over again; she has always promised to 
come, and never kept her word. I am tired of it. 
I have named eleven o'clock. If she is punctual, my 
servant will have ^10,000 to give her, but every 
five minutes after half past eleven he will deduct 

/lOOO." 

She never came at all. The following morning his 
lordship sent for the manager of one of the leading 
jewellers of Bond Street, and instructed him to 
go at once to the residence (if he could find out where 
it was) of a certain ballet dancer named Schaeffer, 
who, though ugly and stupid, had caused some 
sensation in a ballet at the opera, and offer her, in 
his (Pembroke's) name, jewels to the amount of 
;i^ 25,000. The poor fellow had considerable 
difficulty in discovering the ballerina's address; but 
he eventually found the lady in a fourth-floor bedroom 
in Leicester Square engaged in washing her silk 
stockings. 

The delight of Mile Schaeffer can be easily 
imagined; nor is it difficult to picture the dismay of 
Doche when she discovered all that she had lost by 
her perverseness. It was, however, too late to mend 
matters, and, although she wrote letter after letter 
to the Lord of Wilton, her epistles were all returned 
to her unanswered. This intrigue with Schaeffer, 
which Lord Pembroke began in a moment of pique 



244 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

and wounded pride, ripened into a lasting attachment, 
and he not only gave her immense sums during his 
lifetime, but provided for her children, and left 
her all he could in his will. The offspring assumed 
the name of Montgomery, the second title of the 
earldom, and thus it is that we have the noble family 
of De Montgomery in France to-day. 

" I tell this little tale," concludes the narrator, 
" lest it should be imagined that the De Mont- 
gomerys, who are Protestants, are in any way 
connected with the gentleman who had the misfortune 
to kill Henry H. in the famous tilting match." 

In 1843 — Prince Louis Napoleon being then a 
prisoner at Ham — Queen Victoria and the Prince 
Consort visited the King and Queen of the French 
at the Chateau d'Eu, Treport. Here our Queen 
and Prince Albert saw Madame Doche and other 
members of the vaudeville company (Arnal and 
Felix among them) in " Le Chateau de ma Niece " 
and " L'Humoriste," and it is on record that Queen 
Victoria was "much amused" by the sprightly Doche 
and her comrades. 



CHAPTER XXV 

POETS' TRIBUTES 

Napoleon's Death, 1879 

My interest in the Prince Imperial led me, in 1879, 
to offer prizes (in the "Whitehall Review") for the 
best poems on his death. Three of these are now 
appended. I add to them some verses on Napoleon 
III. by my friend, the well-known poet, Mr J. W. 
Gilbart-Smith. 

France 

England, whom waitest thou ? 
shadows are on thy brow, 
and all the night is wet with tears, 
and storms are ringing in thine ears ; 

whom waitest thou ? whom waitest thou ? 
there by thy sea-cliff's ghostly line, 
with sad eyes bent across the brine, 

is it a son of thine 

comes with the dawn divine 

on lips that make no sign ? 

comes o'er the misty sea 

in funeral pageantry? 

England 

It is thy son, France, thine, and mine, 
thy son, my soldier, even mine ; 
mine ; for he wore the sword for me, 
mine ; for he died in fight for me ; 
245 



246 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

thine ; but he cometh not to thee, 
thy heart is closed : thou wilt not see ! 
Wilt thou not weep ? It is thy son ! 
dead — dead ! Napoleon ! 
Was it for this thy myriad-throated throng ? 

thy guns' loud thunder, and thy torches' glance ? 
Was it for this thou criedst all night long 

" Vive I'Empereur ! Long live the Child of 
France ! " 
Was it for this he rode beside his sire 

ere the storm burst and swept away the throne ? 
Was it for this the baptism of fire 

marked on his boyish brow " Napoleon " ? 
Was it for this he watched through exiled years 

his widowed mother, he — her only son ? 
Was it for this she clung to him in tears. 

What would be left to her when he was gone ? 
Weep, France, it is thy son, 
dead ! dead ! Napoleon ! 

Was it for this the sword he drew 

flashed long ago at Waterloo? 

Was it for this to fall and die 

not in some glorious victory, 

not charging blithely in the van 

with many a war-stained veteran, 

not leading proudly, France, for thee 

the flower of all thy chivalry ; 

but butchered by a savage band, 

— a nameless skirmish in a worthless land ? 

Dead! ... 
Aye ! but as a man he died 
spotless, undaunted, in his fearless pride ; 
fronting the foe he stood, 

fell — as a soldier should ! 



POETS' TRIBUTES 247 

France 

O England ! sister, keep my child ! 

My heart is rent, my brain is wild, 

a thousand fighting voices cry. 

Peace ! Peace ! they call, but War is nigh. 

Love is but Hate, and Hopes are Fears, 

and blood is mingled with my tears. 

Keep him awhile : for thee he fell, 

who loved thee so, who loved him well ; 

one day, who knows how soon it be, 

sweet sister, I shall come to thee 

When all these troublous times are done, 
and thou wilt give them back to me, 

the exiled father and the soldier son ; 
to lay them where He lieth low, 
my greatest soldier, and thy deadliest foe. 
Here shall they slumber in one grave, 
'neath the gold dome, among my brave ; 
and England's tears with mine shall keep 
the place still hallowed where they sleep. 

F. E. Weatherly (Oxford). 



By Ityotyozi 

He last; and we on his track, with the rush and the 

roar of the wind ; 
I was two paces in front, Sinto and Magok behind. 

" Dastard ! " we cried ; but he turned him and faced 

us erect, unafraid : 
Only a boy, with the eye of a chief and the cheek of a 

maid. 



248 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Flickered a lance; it was mine — and I fell, and these 

tidings they bring — 
"He has a mother will mourn him ; and he is the son 

of a king." 

I had been foremost, with Sinto and. Magok for 

second and third — 
On came our twenty as one, sweeping down on the 

prey like a bird. 

Handling it not over swiftly, for rieving of spoil ere 

we trek. 
Good, but the guerdon they gave him is hanging 

untouched on his neck. 

Sinto and Magok boast high that their assegais met in 

his breast ; 
Craven I am not, nor traitor, yet take I less joy than 

the rest. 

Would that But none may demand it, the dart 

that has once taken wing. 
No ! carry him back to his mother. He was not 

unmeet for a king. 

The Empress 

" Quomodo sedat solitana ! " 

I 

She sat alone : and heard the nation's cry : 

" A child is born to us, 
And the glory of Napoleon shall not die, 

Whose reign is glorious ; 
For his shall be the sceptre, and his the power, 

And his the empire be. 



POETS' TRIBUTES 249 

And thou that art his mother ! in this thine hour 
What shall we bring to thee ? " 

And they brought her tribute, anH they gave her thanks 

That she had borne a son, 
To send the famous name down battle-ranks — 

His name. Napoleon. 
And with grateful heart she took the gifts they gave, 

And gave them back again. 
For her hands were strong for mercy, swift to save, 

And quench the fires of pain. 

" Empress of joys ! " they said : 

" Till Life and Hope be dead. 
For thy sake and the sake of memories, 

In all her change or chance 

Thine is the arm of France, 
Thine are our lives, whose hopes are thine and his ! " 

II 

She sat, an exiled widow, Hesolate, 

Alone, but not alone. 
Though the days were over when she shone in state 

From her Imperial Throne : 
For the child was with her, on whose sanguine face 

The light of Hope was bright. 
And she girded up her strength to run his race, 

Her arms to fight his fight. 
She abode, a stranger in an alien land, 

A land that held her dear; 
For not widowhood nor exile stayeH her hand 

From bounties year by year ; 
But her eyes were Beauty, and her heart was Love, 

Yea, love divine indeed. 



250 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

For she gave her only son to the death, to prove 
Our help in time of need. 

" Empress of griefs ! " we said : 

" This crown is on thine head, 
That, where others have done well, thou hast done best : 

As once in France, so now 

In England, first art thou : 
When God took much, thou hast not spared the rest." 

Ill 

She sat alone : and heard the nation's cry : 

" Lo ! now the child is dead. 
But his memory shall not fade, nor the halo die 

That shineth round his head ; 
For his shall be the glory, and his the power, 

And his the kingdom be ; 
And he shall reign, not for a little hour, 

But everlastingly." 
Though they brought not tribute, yet they gave her 
tears 

(A tribute costlier found), 
Who was more their mother than in happier years, 

An exile and discrowned. 
And they gazed aghast upon that silent son. 

Whose voice is heard on high. 
But on her durst no man gaze, till the work was done 

Of her royallest agony. 

" Empress of hearts ! " they said : 

" Though Life and Hope be dead, 
Lift up thy crown of sorrows, watch and pray ! 

Yea, though thine all be gone, 

Be patient, suffer on ! 
God shall restore tenfold on this great day." 

W. M. Hardinge. 



POETS' TRIBUTES 251 

To THE Memory of Napoleon III. 
The Brunig Pass 

Time was, a child, I looked upon thy face 
In a green valley, 'neath an Alpine height ; 
Did timorously proffer garlands bright — 

Gold daffoclils, and violets of thy race, — 

Which on thy breast found honoured resting place : 
I saw thee, Sire ! till the descending night 
Hid thee for years from me, with Her — thy 
Light,— 

Borne swiftly downward to the mountain's base : 

A happy picture, well remembered yet, — 
Youth treasures long what aged eyes forget 
And carves the shrine which memory loves to keep ! — 
A picture rimmed with gold that reapers reap. 
Coloured with narcissi anH mignonette. 
And snows where day went flushing up the steep. 

The Tuileries 

And now this portraiture : — the pride, — tKe fame 
Of Europe met to do thee reverence : 
Night, losing all her look of pale suspense 

In the full gleam of lights that went and came : 

Sovereigns around thee : suzerains whose name 
Bejewelled e'en thy gemmed magnificence : 
Statesmen, and warriors famous in defence ; — 

A court convoked to chorus thine acclaim ! 

And thou, with face predestined for reverse, 
Features prophetic with impending woe. 
Moved 'mid the throng, — a shadow in the glow ! 
Kind was thy fortune, even in its curse — 
Within the better it forestalled the worse. 
And brought thee naught thy prescience did not know. 



252 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Chislehurst 

Alas, this final vista of the past ! — 

A face serene — yet scarce more calm than life ; 

Subdued, in solace of completed strife ; 
Dusk, in the droop of canopies o'ercast. 
Sleeps in long rest from battle and from blast : 

Around, rich bloom, yet quivering with the knife, 

And dewy still, with tears of son and wife ; 
And laurels, such as come with death at last. 

And none that seek thy presence are denied ; 

And some that look their last upon thee weep ; 
But I, that see how death has beautified 

And smoothed the lines and filled the furrows 

deep. 
Chime to mine heart : — " God gives the weary 
sleep, 
And summons death to watch the calm bedside ! " 

J. W. Gilbart-Smith. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE EMPRESS AND SARAH BERNHARDT 

Many years ago, in Paris, I became acquainted with 
Mme Sarah Bernhardt through the good offices of 
our mutual friend the late M. de Blowitz, the 
renowned Paris Correspondent of the " Times," 
who, in 1875, by the magic of his pen, had 
prevented Germany from repeating her 1870 attack 
upon France. In the actress's home, No. 15 Rue St 
Georges, we talked (I should say Mme Bernhardt 
talked) " of many things," of the beautiful " Madame 
Langtry," and of the illustrious lady who, in con- 
junction with her consort, had " commanded " the 
then Mile Sarah (she spells it " Sara ") to appear at 
the Tuileries. In 1907 the " divine " one's 
" Memoires " were issued by Fasquelle (Paris), 
entitled " Ma Vie," * and from it I translated portions 
of her spirited account of her performance in 1869, 
at the Imperial Palace (from which the Empress fled, 
a year later), of the late Francois Coppee's beautiful 
poem, " Le Passant," in which I first saw the 
actress at the late Lady Brassey's, in Park Lane : 
Mr and Mrs Gladstone and Lord Granville, and 
many other " Best of World " personages, were 
present. 

Mme Bernhardt tells us that her performance at 

* Later an admirable English version of the book was 
published by Mr William Heinemann. 

253 



254 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

the Tuileries in 1869 was given in honour of 
Sophie, Queen of Holland, who had been for many 
years on intimate terms with the French Sovereigns, 
and remained the devoted friend of the Empress 
Eugenie after the overthrow of the dynasty, an 
event which, I remember, the Queen of the Nether- 
lands had foreseen as likely to happen. Queen 
Sophie's son, the Prince of Orange (" Citron," as 
he was familiarly styled), whom the Emperor intro- 
duced to the Prince of Wales (King Edward), was 
present; and the young actress and her companions 
were overwhelmed with congratulations. Before 
the night of the performance Mile Bernhardt, 
accompanied by Mme Guerard, was summoned to 
the Tuileries to be presented to the Imperial couple. 
Comte de Laferriere escorted them in a Court 
carriage. The vehicle was " held up " momentarily 
at the corner of the Rue Royale, and General 
Fleury, who happened to be passing, came up and 
greeted them. Learning from the Count that they 
were going to the Tuileries, the General exclaimed, 
" Bonne chance ! " A man in the street heard the 
remark, and shouted, " ' Bonne chance,' perhaps; 
but not for long. They are a good-for-nothing lot ! 

Arrived at the Palace, Mile Bernhardt and Mme 
Guerard (who were presently joined by that other 
brilliant actress. Mile Agar) waited in a small 
" yellow " salon, while Comte de Laferriere went 
in quest of the Emperor. Sarah began to practise 
her three ceremonious curtsies before Mme Guerard. 
" Mon petit' dame, tell me if this is correct," said the 
actress, who again curtsied, murmuring, with lowered 
eyes, " Sire — Sire." A stifled laugh was heard, 
and Sarah angrily turned, only to see her companion 




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SARAH BERNHARDT 255 

bowing to the ground. It was the Emperor, who, 
much amused at the little rehearsal of the curtsies, 
clapped his hands and laughed " discreetly." " I 
blushed, and was confused. How long had he been 
there ? I had ' plunged ' I don't know how many 
times, saying to Guerard, ' Thafs too low ! That's 
all right, isn't it?' Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! 
Had he heard all that? And, despite my confusion, 
I was curtsying when the Emperor, smiling, said, 
' It's useless. It will never be prettier than now. 
Reserve your curtsies for the Empress, who is 
waiting for you.' 

" The Emperor walked by my side, speaking 
of a thousand things, to which I could only reply 
absently. I found him more agreeable to look at 
than his portraits. He had such fine eyes, half- 
closed, which regarded you from under their very 
long lashes. His smile was sad, and somewhat sly. 
His face was pale, and his voice low and 
fascinating. . . . The Empress was seated in a 
large arm-chair. A grey dress imprisoned her; she 
seemed to be moulded in the stuff. I thought her 
pretty — prettier than the portraits made her. I made 
my three curtsies amidst the Emperor's smiles. 

" When Agar arrived, and had been presented 
to their Majesties, the Empress led the way into 
the large salon in which the performance was to be 
given. . . . The Prince Imperial, then about thirteen, 
arrived presently, and helped me to arrange the 
flowers on the platform. He roared with laughter 
when Agar mounted the steps to try the effect. 
He was delicieux, the young Prince, with his 
magnificent eyes, with heavy eyelids like his mother, 
and long eyelashes like his father. The Prince 



256 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

was spirituel, like the Emperor — that Emperor who 
had been nicknamed ' Louis rimbecile,' and who 
certainly had the acutest, most subtle, and at the 
same time the most generous mind. We arranged 
everything for the best; and it was decided that we 
should come to the Palace two days later to give a 
rehearsal before their Majesties. With what grace 
the Prince Imperial asked if he might attend the 
rehearsal ! — a request which was granted. 

" The Empress said ' au revoir ' in the most 
charming manner, and ordered her two ladies-in- 
waiting to see that we had biscuits and sherry, and 
to show us over the Tuileries if we wished. 
Personally, I did not care about it, but ' mon petit' 
dame ' and Agar seemed so delighted with the 
Empress's offer that I fell in with it. And I have 
always regretted that I did so, for nothing could 
have been uglier than the private apartments, except 
the Emperor's study and the stairs. I was terribly 
bored, but somewhat consoled by some of the 
pictures, really fine works, and I stood a long time 
looking at Winterhalter's portrait of the Empress 
Eugenie. * She looked well like that; and this 
portrait explained and justified her unexpected good 
fortune. There were no incidents at the rehearsal. 
The young Prince tried his hardest to express his 
gratitude to us, for, as he could not be present 
at the actual performance in the evening, we had 
made it a ' dress ' rehearsal. He sketched my 
costume, and said he would have one made like it, 
and would wear it at the masked ball which was about 
to be given in his honour." 

* This portrait and one of Mme Bernhardt of the period are 
given in the present volume. 



SARAH BERNHARDT 257 

Twelve years later we in London saw Mme Bern- 
hardt in a salon, and, strange to say, when we were 
horror-struck by the slaying of the dear " little 
Prince." News of the tragedy in Zululand reached 
the House of Commons an hour or two before 
midnight on the 19th of June, 1879, and was com- 
municated without a moment's delay to the Queen, 
the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge, 
The sad tidings spread from club to club, the 
Heir-Apparent making it known at the " Marl- 
borough." Precisely how and when the Prince of 
Wales learned of what had happened to the Imperial 
youth we learned, for the first time, from M. Jacques 
Normand thirty-two years later. M. Normand wrote 
(1911): 

" In June, 1879, I was in London during the 
performances given by the Comedie Fran^aise. 
I had previously written a comedietta, in one act, 
called ' La Goutte d'Eau,' for representation in 
London salons by Sarah Bernhardt, Frederic Febvre 
and Jules Truffier. One night my piece was given 
at the house of a grande dame whom I must call 
Lady X., * for her name has escaped me. Among 
the audience were the then Prince and Princess of 
Wales. The piece was nearly over when I saw a 
servant give a telegram to the Prince, who opened 
and read it immediately. I could see by his 
expression that this telegram had greatly shocked 
him. He, however, preserved his composure, and 
held the dispatch in his right hand, without saying 
a word to anyone. At the end of the piece the Prince 
rose, said a few words to the Princess and the 
personages who were in attendance on their Royal 

* The Countess of Wilton. — Author. 



258 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Highnesses, spoke to Lady X., and retired a few 
moments afterwards. The Prince's abrupt departure 
caused general surprise, and the salon was soon 
empty. Frederic Febvre * — still in his Russian 
General's uniform — came up to me and said excitedly : 
' Do you know what has happened .^^ ' ' No.' ' The 
Prince of Wales has received a telegram informing 
him that the Prince Imperial has been killed in 
Zululand.' The next moment we told Sarah Bern- 
hardt and Truffier, and doubtless we four were 
the first French people to hear of the tragic end of 
the poor ' Petit Prince,' whom, in my youth, I had 
seen more than once in the Tuileries gardens or 
near the lake." 

When I saw Mme Bernhardt in London, in 
" Les Cathedrales," in January, 191 6, she appeared 
to be almost " the same Sarah " as in the old days, 
despite the cruel suffering she had gone through 
in the previous year. No one could have received 
the inexpressibly sad news of the amputation more 
sympathetically than the Empress Eugenie, who 
well remembers that night at the Tuileries forty- 
seven years ago. The great actress is twenty 
years the junior of the Empress, and in January, 
1 9 14, was awarded the coveted Cross of the Legion 
of Honour. She is a patriot to the core, and 
since 1870 she has resolutely refused to appear 
before the Kaiser at a " command " performance. 
But, during one of her tours a few years ago, 
she visited Berlin, and among her audience was — * 
her Imperial enemy ! The Huns did not " see much 
in her " ; but that was to be expected. \ °|| 

* M. F6bvre, as noted elsewhere, survives in 1916. He 
is the oldest living- soci^taire of the Th^dtre Francais. King 
Edward highly esteemed him. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 

Old Friends of the Empress y 

A FEW only of those who were best known to the 
Empress can be noted in this obituary record, which 
is brought up to March, 191 6. 

The Due de Bassano, whom I first met at Chisle- 
hurst on the day of the Emperor's death, was a 
venerable figure even at that date. The one-time 
Grand Chamberlain of the Imperial Court remained 
devotedly attached to the Empress, at Farnborough 
Hill as well as at Chislehurst, until 1898, when 
his lono^ career closed. His successor was his onlv 
son, whom many will remember as the Marquis de 
Bassano, the husband of a charming Canadian 
lady, and father of three daughters — one the Comtesse 
^e Viel-Castel, and another Lady Edward Blount. f 
He was the third bearer of the ducal title, and with 
his death, in May, 1906, the dukedom became 
extinct. The third Duke had been an intimate friend 
of the Prince Imperial, and with Sir Evelyn Wood 
accompanied the Empress on her journey to Zululand 
in 1880. The obsequies of the last Due de Bassano 
were solemnised at the Paris church of St Pierre de 
Chaillot, and a Mass was celebrated at the same 
time, for ladies, in the Chapelle des Catechismes, 
in the Avenue Marceau. 

A few months later — in August, 1906 — there died 
259 



26o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

the fifth Due de Broglie, whose father was for a short 
time French Ambassador at our Court. The fifth 
Due fought in the war of 1870, and was secretary 
of Embassy to his father at Albert Gate. 

In the summer of 1906 Prinee Eugene Murat 
was killed when motoring in Bavaria. He was 
the son of Prince Louis Napoleon Murat (who 
married Princesse Eudoxia Michaelovna, n^e Somow), 
and wedded, in 1899, the sister of the Due 
d'Elehingen (Prince de la Moskowa). Prinee Eugene, 
who was only thirty-one, left three young children. 

One more of the few remaining members of the 
House of Bonaparte passed away, in 1907, in the 
person of Princess Christine Bonaparte, at the age of 
sixty-five. Her parentage may be briefly noted. In 
the year 1803 there was born Prinee Charles Bona- 
parte, a Roman prince and noble; in 1822, when only 
nineteen, he married Zenaide, nee Princesse Bona- 
parte, who died in 1854, and three years later her 
husband died. Their only son was Prince Napoleon 
Charles Bonaparte, born in 1839, died in 1890. This 
Prinee married, in 1859, Christine, Princess Ruspoli, 
who was born in 1842. She died on the 5th of 
February, 1907, at Rome after an illness of several 
months' duration. Prince Napoleon Charles and 
Princess Christine Bonaparte had two daughters. 
The elder, Princess Mario Zenaide, was born at Rome 
in 1870, and married, in 1891, Enrico Gotti, a 
lieutenant of infantry in the Italian army. The 
second daughter. Princess Eugenia, was born at 
Grotto Ferrata in 1872, and married at Rome, in 
1898, Napoleon Ney Elchingen, Prinee de la Mos- 
kowa. The Prince and Princess de la Moskowa were 
separated in 1903 by a judgment of the Civil Tribunal 





-5 < 



w 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 261 

of the Seine. The two daughters of the lamented 
Princess Christine (Mme Enrico Gotti and Princess 
de la Moskowa) were with their mother at her death. 
Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, the husband 
of Princess Christine, was the grandson of Prince 
Lucien Bonaparte on his father's side and of King 
Joseph on his mother's side, and, after serving in the 
French army, retired to Rome. Princess Christine's 
brother. Prince Ruspoli, predeceased her. The 
Princess's beauty, charitable deeds, and esprit 
had made her a general favourite. She had not seen 
France for many years, but retained the happiest 
memories of her husband's country. 

Early in 1908 the Empress mourned the loss of 
one who had been an equerry of Napoleon III., 
Prince Stanislas Poniatowski, who had survived 
the overthrow of the dynasty for nearly forty years, 
and whose wife (still living) was one of the ladies 
distinguished at the Tuileries by her beauty and 
esprit. A son of Prince Joseph Poniatowski, and 
born at Florence, Prince Stanislas was the great- 
grand-nephew of Stanislas Augustus, King of 
Poland, and of that Prince Andre Poniatowski who 
was the father of the celebrated marshal. Prince 
Stanislas went to Paris in the early years of the 
Second Empire, and in 1856 married the daughter of 
the Comte Le Hon, Belgian Minister in France. 

In June, 1867, Prince Stanislas, as an Imperial 
equerry, was dressing to attend the review at Long- 
champ, at which the Emperar was present, having by 
his side the King of Prussia and the Emperor 
Alexander II., grandfather of the present Tsar, 
M. Raimbeaux entered Prince Stanislas's room in 
a great hurry, and begged the Prince to allow him to 



262 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

act as equerry for the day, as he was most anxious 
to be present at the review. " You," said M. Raim- 
beaux, " have been at these functions so often, 
while I have never attended one of them." The 
Prince did not relish the idea at all, but eventually 
he gave way, and allowed Raimbeaux to take his 
place. What happened was this. The two Emperors 
were chatting in their carriage, when the Pole 
Berezowski rushed forward and attempted the 
Tsar's life. Raimbeaux, in the nick of time, 
manoeuvred his horse between the would-be assassin 
and the Sovereigns, and so saved the Tsar. The 
bullet struck Raimbeaux's horse, and both the rider 
and his mount were covered with blood. Raimbeaux 
was the hero of the day, and great was the chagrin of 
Prince Stanislas. It would have been indeed curious 
had he, a Pole by origin, prevented a Polish 
revolutionist from assassinating the Tsar. 

Prince Stanislas remained steadfast to his Imperial 
convictions, and when hard times set in he pluckily 
went on the Bourse, where he displayed a great 
capacity for business. At the clubs he was most 
popular, for he was full of esprit and good humour. 
The members of the " Jockey " affectionately 
dubbed him " the King." As a pigeon-shot he 
was, in his day, almost unrivalled, and almost to the 
last he was to be seen at the Bois de Boulogne Club. 

The Empress had her favourites as well as her 
aversions. Admiral Jurien de la Graviere came 
in the first category. This distinguished sailor, who 
died in 1892, stood by the side of her Majesty 
when she left the Tuileries for ever. He it was. 
whom on the 4th of September the Empress con- 
sulted touching her best means of escape. He 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 263 

strongly urged her to descend the Seine in a small 
gunboat, the Puebla, which at the moment was 
moored in the river, close to the Palace. " Impos- 
sible, my dear Admiral," replied the Empress; 
" why, at the first lock we came to we should be 
recognised, and they would pluck me as they 
would a violet " — not an inappropriate comparison. 

Charles Bocher, who died in April, 1908, was 
the oldest of the subscribers to the Opera; his 
musical recollections extended over fifty years. 
He had seen service in Algeria and in the Crimea, 
and was one of the Emperor's aides de camp. More 
than that — he very nearly became the brother-in-law 
of his Imperial Majesty; for the future Emperor, 
when still under the tutelage of Philippe Le Bas, 
was epris of Mile Bocher, and told her mother 
of his love for the young lady. Mme Bocher, 
however, did not take the Prince seriously, and 
he rode away from Bale disconsolate — for a time. 
The Bochers had been the guests (with Mme 
Recamier, Mile Delphine Gay, afterwards Mme Emile 
de Girardin; Prince Czartorisky, the Prince de la 
Moskowa, and others) of Queen Hortense at 
Arenenberg, and it was under the roof of Louis 
Napoleon's mother that the two young people 
had met. At the date of M. Bocher's death he was 
the Empress's senior by three weeks. 

Colonel Stoffel, who died in April, 1907, at the age 
of eighty-eight, was one of three persons who knew 
with absolute certainty long before the war of 
1 870- 1 87 1 broke out that it was bound to come 
sooner or later. General Ducrot and the late 
Melanie Comtesse de Pourtales shared his know- 
ledge. 



264 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

One of the many old and attached friends whose 
loss the Emperor, during his brief exile, had to 
deplore was M. Conti, who had been the Sovereign's 
chef de cabinet. He was a Corsican Deputy, 
but illness compelled him to retire, and he was 
succeeded in the National Assembly by M. Rouher, 
whom Gambetta described, in 1872, as " that lawyer 
of the Empire at bay." The Bonapartists made 
a demonstration at Conti's funeral, and cries of 
" Vive I'Empereur ! " were heard in front of the 
Church of St Augustin, an edifice largely due to 
the liberality of Napoleon HI. Three bouquets, 
sent from Chislehurst, were laid on Conti's tomb. 
M. Conti's married daughter, who had been one 
of the Empress's " ladies " at the Tuileries, died in 
1909 of an embolism — the malady which, according 
to the doctors, terminated the existence of the 
Emperor. 

In the roll of the departed the name of Mme Cornu 
must find a place, for she was the Emperor's foster- 
sister, and was seen once at least at Chislehurst 
during the lifetime of Napoleon. Hortense Cornu, 
nee Lacroix, was the daughter of one of Queen 
Hortense's ladies-in-waiting, and was the junior 
by a year of her foster-brother. The two children 
were brought up together until she was fourteen, 
and until two months of the Emperor's death they 
corresponded regularly, with the exception of a 
period of twelve years, when they ceased to write to 
each other. This rupture of their friendship was 
the result of the Coup d'Etat of the 2nd of December. 
Hortense, a sincere Republican, was at the time 
residing at Vincennes, and heard the fusillades 
which terrorised Paris, Shortly afterwards Napoleon 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 265 

called upon her, but from the top of the stairs she 
shouted out, sufficiently loudly for him to hear, that 
" she would not receive an assassin." In 1856 
she somewhat relented, and wrote congratulating 
him upon the birth of his son; she still, however, 
refused to see him, although she resumed letter- 
writing, assisted him in his " Life of Caesar," and 
acted as intermediary between him and a band of 
young litterateurs, including Ernest Renan and 
Leon Renier. 

In 1863, after twelve years' separation, there 
was a reconciliation, following upon a touching letter 
written to Mme Cornu by the Emperor, who asked 
her to visit the Tuileries and embrace the Prince 
Imperial, then seven years old. 

Mme Cornu thereafter visited the Empress two 
or three times a week, but she never forgot what had 
caused the rupture of her friendship with the 
Emperor. 

The late Mr Nassau Senior had several inter- 
views with Mme Cornu between 1854 and 1863, 
and had much to say about her in his " Conversa- 
tions." " From to time to time," she told him, " the 
destruction of our liberties, the massacres of 1851, 
the transportations of 1852, the reprisals by Orsini, 
rise before me, and I have a horror of being 
embraced by a man [Napoleon III.] covered with 
the blood of so many of my friends." One day 
she showed Senior all the letters written to her by the 
Emperor, or rather all those which, in her own 
words, " she had thought worthy of preservation." 
Many years later she had some of the letters copied 
and sent them to Mr Blanchard Jerrold, who, 
however, used only about a dozen of them in his 



266 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

biography of Napoleon III. M. Salomon Reinach 
wrote a biographical sketch of her. Renan had 
intended to publish the whole of the letters, but 
he never did so, and ultimately they fell into the 
hands of M. Seymour de Ricci. There are two 
hundred and ninety-seven in all. For several years 
the French Government prohibited their publication; 
but in November, 1908, M. de Ricci announced, in 
" La Revue," that, as the Government had with- 
drawn its interdict, he would issue them. In the letters 
(says M. de Ricci) " all the events in the career of 
Napoleon III. pass before us, thanks to these 
awful scrawls, hesitating and difficult to read." 
The writing recalls the " feverish hieroglyphics " 
of Napoleon I. and that " mild obstinacy " and 
somewhat impersonal personality which, according 
to the historians of the Second Empire, were among 
the characteristics of Napoleon III. " We find 
in these letters all the qualities and all the defects 
of the man who led France from the days of 1848 to 
those of Sedan." 

The Empress's attached domestic, " Pepa " 
(Mme Pollet), one of her countrywomen, was seen 
at Chislehurst for a brief space. The air did 
not agree with her, and she soon returned to France, 
there to die. " Pepa " had married an officer, 
who fell in the war of 1870; and she had occupied 
the post of treasurer to the Empress for many years. 

The American dentist, Mr Evans, who perhaps 
saved the Empress's life by escorting her to Deau- 
ville, died in Paris in November, 1897. I^ the 
following year the celebrated Comte Walewski 
passed away. He was a natural son of Napoleon I., 
and took the name of his mother, a Polish countess. 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 267 

He stood high in the favour of Napoleon III., 
filled many responsible posts, had been President 
of the Congress of Paris, Ambassador to England, 
and was " one of the dandies " of the Second 
Empire. 

General Tiirr died at Budapest in 1908. He 
was at one time a confidant of Napoleon III., and, 
by his marriage with Princess Adelaide Wyse- 
Bonaparte, called cousins with the Emperor. 

The same year brought with it the deaths of 
Lord Glenesk, of the " Morning Post," whose intimate 
friendship with the Emperor and Empress is so 
well known; and, in November, of Comte Davilliers 
Regnaud de Saint Jean d'Angely, an equerry of 
Napoleon III. and one of the most striking figures 
of the Imperial reign. He accompanied the Emperor 
in the Italian campaign of 1866 and in the war 
of 1870, and remained at Chislehurst until his 
Imperial master's death. 

A month or so before the Empress's eighty-third 
birthday (May 5, 1909), her Majesty heard with 
unfeigned regret of the death of the Right Reverend 
Monsignor Goddard, who, as the priest of St Mary's, 
Chislehurst, was in daily attendance at Camden 
Place from September, 1870, until the Empress's 
departure for Farnborough Hill. 

A few weeks previously there passed away, in 
Paris, a lady whose friendship with the Empress 
extended over half a century — Mme Gavini de 
Campile, nee Comtesse de Raymond, whose husband 
was one of the most prominent prefets of the Second 
Empire. When the Gavinis occupied the prefecture 
at Nice their entertainments were the talk of 
the whole region. Mme Gavini's salons resembled 



268 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

a court, and in them were to be seen at various 
times Napoleon III. and the Empress, the Emperor 
Alexander II. (grandfather of the present Tsar), 
the Bavarian Kings Ludwig and Maximilian, the 
late King Oscar of Sweden and other august 
personages. 

Monsignor Goddard's death (March 28, 1909) 
was preceded by that of the Due de Mouchy, who had 
married Princesse Anna Murat at Paris in December, 
1865. Antoine Juste Leon de Noailles, sixth Due de 
Mouchy, was also Marquis d'Arpajon, a Grand 
d'Espagne of the First Class, and had the further 
distinction of Hereditary Grand Cross of the Order of 
Malta, of which King Edward was the head and 
the German Emperor a member. The late Due 
was born in April, and her Highness the Duchesse in 
February, 1841. Their only son, Prince and Due 
de Poix, died in 1900 — their only daughter. 
Mile Sabine de Noailles, many years previously. 
The founder of the family was Philippe Comte de 
Noailles, Duque de Mouchy, who was born in 
17 15, the Spanish ducal title being confirmed in 
France, first in 1814 by Napoleon I. and secondly 
in 1867 by Napoleon III. The late Due, a 
Monarchist, was won over to the Second Empire 
before his marriage by the attractive personality 
of the Emperor and the irresistible fascination of 
the Empress Eugenie. It was said that the young 
Due was by no means anxious to wed a princess 
of the House of Murat, on the ground that his 
Royalist friends would regard the union as somewhat 
of a mesalliance. The Emperor, however, who 
seems to have set his heart on the marriage, ridiculed 
the objection, and the alliance proved to be of the 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 269 

happiest, marred only by the grievous loss of the two 
children. All that money could give them the young 
couple had, for the Due was enormously rich, and we 
know how greatly all the Murats benefited by the 
generosity of Napoleon III. After the death of 
the Prince Imperial it was the general belief that the 
Duchesse de Mouchy and the D'Albe family (as 
represented by the present Due, the intimate friend 
of King Alfonso) would inherit much of the Empress 
Eugenie's wealth. Monsignor Goddard did not 
share that view, nor do I. Certainly the widowed 
Duchesse de Mouchy is in no need of another 
golden shower. 

General the Marquis de Galliffet died in Paris 
on July 8, 1909, aged seventy-nine. He came of an 
old Dauphiny family, and was the son of the Marquis 
de Galliffet, Due de Martigues. The General's 
acquaintance with King Edward dated from the 
early sixties. To Queen Alexandra he had been 
known nearly as long. The Empress Eugenie 
mourned a friend who had been a staunch Bonapartist 
for fully half a century. 

Promoted to the rank of General a day or two 
before the crushing defeat of the French forces on 
September i, 1870, De Galliffet's name is writ 
large in the annals of the disastrous Franco- 
Prussian campaign. " Make one more attempt to 
get through, pour I'amour de nos armes ! " shouted 
Ducrot at Sedan. " As many as you like, General ! " 
replied De Galliffet, heading his cavalry for what 
proved to be a final charge " into the jaws of death." 

M. Xavier Feuillant, aged seventy-one, died in 
June, 19 14. He was the brother of the Marquis de 
Contades and of the Marquise de Miramon; one 



270 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of the faithful of Chislehurst; a Boulangist, a 
cavalry officer, and a wearer of the Medaille 
Militaire (instituted by Napoleon III.). 

The Empress has survived the Marquis de Massa, 
the Due de Rivoli, Mme Fortoul (a Minister's wife 
who behaved so rudely to the then Mile de Montijo 
at an Imperial gathering immediately after her 
engagement to the Emperor), the Due de Conegliano 
(for years head of the Imperial Household), 
Mme Bartholoni (one of the beauties of the Second 
Empire), General de Charette, the Baroness 
Alphonse de Rothschild, M. Emile Ollivier (whose 
career is detailed in another chapter), and the 
Comtesse Edmond de Pourtales (19 14). 

In November, 19 14, the Empress was distressed at 
hearing of the death of that devoted servant of the 
Second Empire, and later of the Republic, Vice- 
Admiral Charles Duperre, whose end came suddenly 
at his chateau of Peychaud, in the Gironde. 
Born in 1832 he entered the Imperial Naval School 
at the age of fifteen, and was a captain at thirty- 
eight. He was an officier d'ordonnance of the 
Emperor when the war of 1870 broke out. He 
wore the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur. 

Mme Firmin Raimbeaux, who died in December, 
19 1 4, was the daughter of the famous M. Mocquard, 
the Emperor's ecuyer, chief of his Majesty's cabinet, 
and his personal friend. Her salon was for many 
years a very noted one. A wealthy woman, she 
gave much of her fortune to the poor and humble, 
and succeeded the Emperor's celebrated cousin, 
Princesse Mathilde, as president of the Society 
for Incurables. 

M. Ernest Pinard, who died in 1909, was Minister 
of the Interior under the Second Empire. Rochefort 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 271 

attacked him in the most virulent, yet amusing 
manner. 

General de Viel d'Espeuilles, who died in 19 13, 
had been closely associated with the Emperor and 
Empress, took part in Italian and Mexican campaigns, 
commanded a regiment in the war of 1870, and 
was in the battles of Wissemburg, Reichshofen 
and Sedan. In 1856 he was the Prince Imperial's 
officier d'ordonnance after the boy had left St Cyr with 
the rank of lieutenant. 

In the same year M. Edouard Lockroy died. 
The Empress remembered him as a Minister and 
as Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies — 
a Republican prominent in the last years of the 
Empire, and consequently in disfavour with the 
Sovereigns. He was related, by marriage, to Victor 
Hugo. 

The Comte de la Chapelle died at an advanced 
age, in Essex, on September 30, 19 14. His career is 
detailed in my second volume, " The Comedy and 
Tragedy of the Second Empire," from facts supplied 
by my friend, the present Count, who has made 
a reputation as a practitioner (in London) of inter- 
national law. His father was an intimate friend 
and assistant of the Emperor at Chislehurst, by 
whom, and by the Prince Imperial, he was held, 
with reason, in high esteem. It is fitting that he 
should find a record here, apart from the fact that he 
was one of my most valued Bonapartist friends 
and aiders. 

On January 8, 19 15, at the Paris church of 
St Pierre de Chaillot, the obsequies of Mme de 
Waubert de Genlis were attended by the Duchesse 
de Conegliano (whose husband was head of the 



272 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Imperial Household until the fall of the Second 
Empire), the Vicomtesse Adrien Fleury, Comte 
Fleury, and many other Bonapartists. She was 
the widow of the general who had been an aide-de- 
camp of the Emperor. Her sons, Commandant 
and Captain de Waubert, conducted the funeral. 

M. Emile Ollivier died at St Gervais-les-Bains, 
Savoy, on August 30, 19 13, aged eighty-eight. 
A chapter is devoted to him, his life-work, and his 
association with the Emperor and the Empress. 
Her Majesty and the eminent statesman did not always 
vi6w affairs in the same light. 

In February, 19 13, M. Antoine Fardet, who had 
been the Emperor's principal equerry, committed 
self-destruction at his residence, Pantin, aged seventy- 
eight. 

The Empress's Christmas, 191 5, was darkened 
by the death, in Paris, on December 23, of the 
Comtesse Clary, in her eighty-ninth year, the same 
age as the Imperial lady. The obsequies took 
place four days later, at the Church of St Philippe 
du Roule. By desire of the deceased lady no 
invitations were sent out; nor were there any flowers 
or wreaths — also by her wish. Her husband was 
one of those who, immediately after the battle of 
Sedan, brought the Prince Imperial to England 
via Ostend. He was the boy's " gentleman," and 
it was his melancholy duty, on the 9th of January, 
1873, to go over to Woolwich and tell him that 
his father was dead. The lady who died in 19 15 
and her husband were among the most prominent 
members of the little Court at Chislehurst. The 
Count was director-in-chief of the household; the 
Countess was one of the Empress's " ladies " ; 



SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 273 

and they enjoyed the full confidence of the Imperial 
pair. Comte Clary had long predeceased his wife. 
Their son, the present bearer of the title, accom- 
panied the Empress to Ceylon in 1908, and in the 
previous year was at Farnborough Hill during the 
visit of the King and Queen of Spain. 

Very many of our French allies besides the 
Generalissimo and the Empress regretted the death 
in 19 1 5 of Comte Jean Lannes de Montebello, who 
was Marshal Canrobert's standard-bearer at Metz 
and worthily wore the coveted Military Medal. 
His father, a general, was also a notable soldier — an 
aide-de-camp of Napoleon III., commandant of 
the corps of occupation in Rome in 1870, and 
twice Ambassador at Constantinople. Not a few 
English people were more or less familiar with 
the Montebellos' salon, a centre of elegance illumined 
by the Countess's beauty and esprit, and will 
remember that the Count began life as a diplomatist 
and deserted the " carriere " for the army. 

On September 30, 191 5, Captain Ismail de Lesseps, 
3rd Chasseurs de I'Afrique, was killed by a 
German bullet while commanding the 2nd Squadron 
in an attack on the enemy. He was the third 
of the seven sons of the celebrated originator of the 
Suez Canal, Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, a distant 
relative of the Empress. Six of those sons now 
(19 1 6) survive, and five of them were at the front at 
the time of their gallant brother's death. Also 
on active service are three relatives of the deceased 
captain, including the Marquis de Miramon (son-in- 
law of the " grand Frangais," Ferdinand), who was 
not liable to be called up, but enlisted. The canal 
was inaugurated in November, 1869, by the Empress 



274 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Eugenie, by whose side were the Emperor of 
Austria, the present Emperor William's father, 
and a number of other distinguished personages. 
Nine months later came the war of 1870 and the fall 
of the Second Empire. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 

PRINCE NAPOLEON, HIS PROPAGANDIST COM- 
MITTEE, AND THE "LITTLE CATECHISM" 

A YEAR or so before the world war I was favoured 
with copies of the literature issued by Prince 
Napoleon's Comite Central de Propagande Plebisci- 
taire (Appel au Peuple). These highly interesting 
documents were courteously sent to me by M. Rudelle, 
a former Deputy, general secretary of the Committee, 
with full permission to utilise them in any of my 
writings. I had also a communication from M. Rene 
Querenet, the well-known barrister (Docteur en 
Droit), an able practitioner in the Court of Appeal, 
who, officially representing Prince Napoleon, had 
presided at a congress of the society called the 
Jeunesses Plebiscitaires de France, At the time 
in question the adherents of Prince Napoleon were 
demonstrating in Paris and the provinces without 
interference by the police. At a great gathering 
at Toulon the local plebiscitaires marched through 
the streets, headed by a band and by men carrying 
flags on which the Imperial eagle was displayed. 
At Nimes M. Querenet developed the " plebiscitary 
programme " based upon the Prince's " declarations " 
made in London to a representative of the Paris 
" Figaro," in which they appeared at great length. 
The Prince explained that what he and his 
275 



276 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

supporters " wanted was a Government of concord 
and of action. If ever France called upon him to 
lead her he would govern with men of character and 
experience, including many Republicans who had 
served their country in many capacities during the 
previous thirty years. The name of Napoleon," 
he said, " was a programme in itself, but he appealed 
to no dynastic rights." 

" The regime inaugurated by Napoleon I. and 
adopted by Napoleon III. is that which is represented 
to-day by their dynastic heir," wrote a prominent 
Bonapartist, M. Jules Delafosse, Deputy for Calvados, 
in February, 1910, adding: "It is not impossible 
that the Heir of the Napoleons will attain to power 
by those political roads which political and social 
anarchy fatally opens to the predestined man. It 
was by the Consulate or the Presidency that the 
elect of his race were conducted to the throne." 
In a letter to me (October 6th, 191 1) M. Rene 
Querenet says : " My address at Nimes was a 
reproduction of and a commentary upon the social 
programme of Prince Napoleon. This programme 
the Bonapartist Party will develop during the winter 
in the large towns — Lille, Bordeaux, Tours, etc. — as 
we have already developed it at Nimes." 

To describe the former machinery of the Party 
in detail in this time of war would be inappropriate, 
but a reference to one of the publications of the 
Central Committee of the Plebiscitary Propaganda 
issued before August, 19 14, cannot fail to be 
interesting from the historical point of view. I 
refer to the " Petit Catechisme du Plebiscitaire 
Integral," the work of M. Pierre de Cinglais. In 
this pamphlet the Bonapartist doctrine is expounded 



BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 277 

with a simplicity which makes it readily comprehended 
by all. In reply to a leading question the catechumen 
explains : 

" As an electoral committee, at election time, brings 
forward the candidate it considers the most eligible, 
so we Bonapartists present to the whole nation a 
Bonaparte because we consider him the most worthy." 

" But what is your answer to those who complain 
that you thereby make yourselves partisans of the 
hereditary principle? " 

" As G. Cuneo d'Ornano, Deputy for Cognac, 
has said : ' The Heir of the Napoleons is a 
candidate, not a Pretender^ Should he not be elected 
he would bow to the verdict of the nation. We 
choose him because, being a descendant of the 
Bonapartes, he would apply the Bonapartist ideas, 
which we believe are the best; but we leave the 
people to elect him or not." 

" Why do you believe Bonapartist ideas are the 
best? " 

" Because the Bonapartes have always shown 
themselves to be the faithful servants of Democracy. 
The proofs of this are as follows : (i) By applying 
the principles of the French Revolution the Bona- 
partes owed their possession of power to the people 
only (Plebiscites of the Year VHI., of the Year IX., 
of the Hundred Years, of the loth December, 1848, 
20th December, 1851, and the 21st November, 1852); 
(2) The Generals of Napoleon I. were nearly all of 
obscure origin; (3) Napoleon III. gave workmen 
the right to strike, the right to hold meetings, 
the councils of prud'hommes, endeavoured to abolish 
pauperism in France, etc., etc." 

" But what proof is there that the descendant 



278 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of the Bonapartes, being once in power, would put 
their ideas in practice? " 

" He cannot fail to carry on the tradition; he 
owes it to himself to respect his ancestors' ideas; 
and should he fail to do so the people would crush 
him as readily as they raised him to power." 

" So that you leave everything to the People? " 

" Absolutely everything. In a Democracy the 
People are the sole masters, and the Napoleons 
(they have said so themselves) are but their servants." 

" And supposing the People wish to retain the 
Parliamentary Republic and the Constitution of 
1875 — what then?" 

" We should bow to the sovereign will of the 
People, and withdraw the candidature of Prince 
Napoleon." 

" Supposing he desired to be King} " 

" We could only make the same answer." 

" What is your reply to those who tell you that they 
see in the Plebiscite the road to a Dictatorship ? " 

" Our answer is that the People, who are sufficiently 
powerful to elect their Chief, are also strong enough 
to overthrow him, should he exceed his rights, and are 
intelligent enough to choose a good Chief, and not a 
tyrant." 

" Are all Bonapartists in favour of the Plebiscite ? " 

" If they are not, they ought to be. Prince 
Napoleon has a hundred times himself advised 
his partisans to demand solely the Plebiscite. Those, 
therefore, who are not in favour of it fail in their duty 
and are schismatic Bonapartists." 

" But is not universal suffrage, as it actually exists, 
the equivalent of the Plebiscite? " 

" No; firstly, because it is not applicable to the 



BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 279 

Presidential and Senatorial elections; and, secondly, 
because it gives scope for the exercise of illegitimate 
influence in communities, leading to the purchase 
of consciences. Lamartine said : ' You can poison 
a glass of water, but not a river. An Assembly- 
is corruptible, but the People are incorruptible, 
like the ocean.' It is easy to buy some thousands of 
votes, but impossible to buy millions." 

" What do you understand precisely by the word 
' People'?" 

" The collective population of French citizens — 
rich and poor, masters and workmen, princes of 
science and the illiterate, without distinction." 

" Is the Plebiscitary doctrine a purely Bonapartist 
doctrine? " 

" No; it was bequeathed to the Bonapartists by 
the National Convention, which, on the 21st of 
September, 1792, proclaimed the principle of the 
direct Sovereignty of the People." 

" In what terms was that principle enunciated? " 

" In these : ' There cannot be a Constitution until 
it is accepted by the People.' " 

" Name, besides the Napoleons, some other famous 
Plebiscitaires." 

" Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Chapelier, Malouet, 
Washington, Condorcet, Herault de Sechelles, 
Danton, Ledru-Rollin, Lamartine, Henri Rochefort, 
Gambetta, etc., etc." 

" What is your answer to those who upbraid 
Napoleon III. for making war in 1870? " 

" That Bismarck, in his ' Memoirs,' proves that 
the war was desired by himself ; that it was rendered 
inevitable after his falsification of the Ems telegram; 
and, further, that it was wanted by the French 



28o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

people, who, in the streets of Paris, shouted, ' A 
Berlin ! A Berlin ! ' " 

" And what is your reply to those who reproach 
Napoleon III. for the capitulation of Sedan? " 

" We say that, defeated by the treason and the 
incapacity of the Generals thrust upon him by 
the Parliamentary system, with his army lacking 
everything, and with thousands of men who would 
have been inevitably sacrificed. Napoleon III., whose 
kindheartedness was proverbial, preferred the saving 
of their lives to his crown, thereby revealing perhaps 
the finest trait in his character, for it proved his 
pity for his troops and his self-abnegation." 

" What is your answer to those who repeat the 
words, attributed to the Empress Eugenie, ' This 
is my war ' ? " 

" That it is a calumny, and also inept, like most 
so-called 'historical words '; that not a single witness, 
worthy of credence, heard her use the words; and 
that, besides, such a phrase seems most unlikely 
to have been uttered by a woman who so often, at the 
peril of her life, in times of epidemics, visited 
those suffering at the hospitals." 

" The Napoleons, then, were all perfect? " 

" No one is perfect in this world, but they were 
faithful democrats, and always did the utmost 
possible for the good of the people, in which respect 
their government approached perfection." 

" Can you, in a few words, and by citing some 
facts, institute a comparison between the Empire 
and the Third Republic ? " 

" Yes. Under the Empire — Austerlitz, Wagram, 
Eylau, Friedland, etc., etc. Under the Republic 
— Fashoda ! Under the Empire — Suez. Under the 



BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 281 

Republic — Panama ! Under the Empire — the Con- 
cordat, religious peace and national reconciliation. 
Under the Republic — fraudulent denunciation of 
a contract dating back more than one hundred years, 
proscriptions, spoliations, organised robbery ! Under 
the Empire — prosperity for everyone. Under the 
Republic — misery for all ! 

M. Rene Querenet undertook to explain the 
relations which should be maintained between 
Bonapartism and capital and labour (" Ce que devra 
etre un Gouvernement Napoleonien dans ses rapports 
avec le capital et la travail "). Those who have 
had the advantage of hearing this eminent advocate 
in the Court of Appeal will the most readily admit 
his qualification to instruct his countrymen on this 
all-important point, I summarise his statements. 
The situation (he argued in 191 1) was the same 
after as it was before the great paralysing strike 
of 19 10. Nothing had been done to avert the 
real danger which increasingly exasperated the 
working classes. There was anarchy even in 
the councils of the Government. How, then, 
could people be surprised at its spread among 
the masses ouvrieres? One explained the other. 
There was the danger which threatens the country. 
What was the remedy? Prince Napoleon had for 
many years closely studied social questions. He 
understood them thoroughly, and he knew that it 
was with these questions that a new Ruler and a new 
Rule would have to deal before all others. What 
could, what ought a Government to be which would 
have at its head a Bonaparte? The great problem 
was the economic problem. Purely political 
questions were minor matters in comparison with that. 



282 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

What said the First Consul? "Tout pour le peuple et par 
le peuple." To all alike — to the landed proprietors, to the 
directors of great associations with huge capitals, to all who 
take responsibility for the sums necessary for competition 
in the world's markets, to all who, aided by capital, strive 
to make France richer and greater — to all we say, " A 
Napoleonic Government will give you protection." Its 
doctrine makes such a duty imperative. In the Austrian 
campaign the Great Emperor wrote on a report drawn up by 
Portal^s concerning the expropriation of private property for 
public use, in consideration of a just indemnity : " Napoleon, 
with all his victories and all his armies, ought not to have 
the power of entering the field of the humblest peasant in 
France." Marvellous words, stamped with the mark of 
genius — words which comprise all our past and all our future. 

A Napoleonic government could not act in 
opposition to those sovereign words of the Emperor, 
penned at Schonbrunn : " It has been in the past, it 
will be in the future, the guardian of the property 
which is necessary for the existence and the prosperity 
of the country." 

■^^For a century the French bourgeoisie, in its egotism a la 
Guizot, in its spirit of routine, had dominated what remained 
of the nobility and the clergy since they were annihilated 
in 1789 by the Tiers-6tat, and had ignored the working 
masses, their needs, and their desires. One man, and one 
man only, since 1789, gave heed to the wants of the people — 
Napoleon III., Emperor of Labour, Emperor of the Toilers, 
as Napoleon I. was Emperor of the Soldiers. It was 
Napoleon III. who established the Caisse Nationale, which 
provided old-age pensions ; who gave the country the law 
developing self-help societies and making them obligatory in 
every commune ; who gave French workmen the right of 
coalition — the natural right of a man to work or not to work, 
which in current phraseology is improperly called the right 
to strike; and who established for all workers, in town and 
country alike, accident insurance societies, which also assisted 
the infirm, " Encore et toujours Napoleon III." 



BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 283 

All the work of the Third Republic (argued 
M. Querenet) had its germ in the social legislation of 
the Second Empire. What were the conquests of 
the Republic since 1870, in forty years of power 
which, from the political standpoint, was tyrannical ? 
The Republic passed the law of 1898 concerning 
accidents to workers. It also passed measures 
restricting the liberty of the individual, laws limit- 
ing the hours of labour. Such was the sum of 
the Republic's social work (as M. Querenet asserted 
in 1911). 

M. Rudelle, in a letter to me, said : " I send 
you a copy of Prince Napoleon's ' Declarations.' 
This manifesto summarises the Prince's previous 
' declarations,' and may be considered as the most 
exact formula of the principles of the Plebiscitary 
Party." 

The Prince wrote, inter alia : " Those would be 
mistaken who thought I was animated by a spirit 
of blind and systematic opposition " (to the existing 
Republic). " I am not a creator of disorders. I 
will not associate myself with manoeuvres which 
would increase the troubles of the country, com- 
promise its interests, and risk paralysing the action of 
the Government of my country. I place above 
everything my care for the happiness and tranquillity 
of France. I need not say that very many politicians 
believe that Parliamentarism has arrived at the last 
phase of its evolution. The Chambers cannot 
even (in June, 191 1) vote the Budget. It is the 
reign of incoherence. The disorder which is engen- 
dered ends in all kinds of manifestations of anarchy — 
post office and railway strikes, jacquerie in the 
Marne and in the Aube, and a repetition of scandals 



284 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

in all branches of the Administration. We are 
dying of absent authority and false democracy. 
The Plebiscitaires do not seek to secure the triumph 
of a Party. They appeal to all Frenchmen who 
recognise the sovereignty of the People and the 
necessity of a national and strong authority, by 
whatever name it may be called, and an escape from 
Parliamentary intrigues and caprices. The number 
of such people is, believe me, immense. They 
want to formulate their desires. The Plebiscitary 
movement will teach them their strength and lead 
them to victory. To summarise my policy in a 
word, it is the policy of the Consulate." 

An extraordinary sign of the development of 
twentieth-century Bonapartism was apparent in Paris 
in 191 1. A Parliamentary election was impending 
in the seventeenth arrondissement, and the surprised 
electors were confronted, on the eve of the polling, 
by seeing on the walls a placard containing a 
recent " manifesto " of Prince Napoleon, headed 
with a request to the electors to read the Prince's 
" declarations " before depositing their votes in the 
urns. The electors were also invited to insist upon 
the candidates promising to vote for measures 
permitting the exiled Prince to return to France, 
and for revising the constitutional laws " in order 
that universal suffrage may give the Republic a 
Chief and a Government which would govern. 
Only Prince Napoleon," it was added, " can 
re-establish in our democracy that order and authority 
which are the essential guarantees of liberty." By 
the Prince's instructions, this method of propaganda 
was to be adopted only at the general elections 
throughout the country. M. Rudelle had begun 



BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 285 

the organisation of " regional " and departmental 
committees, and appointed correspondents in all the 
arrondissements. Subsequently the various Political 
Committees of the Bonapartist Party were fused, 
and the new organisation was given the title of 
" Plebiscitary Political Committee," and placed 
under the direct personal presidency of Prince 
Napoleon. 

For the first time the Government of the 
Third Republic was confronted in 1911-1912 by a 
" serious " Bonapartist opposition — peaceful, it is 
true, or it would not have been countenanced by 
the Heir of the Napoleons, but resolute, well 
organised, and presumably not lacking the wherewithal 
to carry on its operations. Significant for its boldness 
was the prominent position given by the propagandists 
to the Emperor Napoleon III. and his work. This 
was certainly courageous, and many might possibly 
have seen in it an indication that the bitter feeling 
with which the Empress Eugenie's ill-fated consort 
was regarded for so many years after the " down- 
fall " was gradually disappearing, although it might 
be inaccurate to say it had entirely vanished. 
But France has learnt much from M. Emile 
Ollivier's great work, " L' Empire Liberal," and was 
in a position to judge fairly and squarely the 
merits and demerits of that Second Empire 
which I have described. Like other sovereigns, 
Napoleon IIL had the defects of his qualities. 
It is incontestable that France prospered under 
his rule of more than eighteen years. 

To fete the anniversary of Prince Louis Napoleon's 
election as President of the Republic the Plebiscitary 
Committees of the Seine gave a banquet at the 



286 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Salon des Families, presided over by the Marquis de 
Dion in the absence of Prince Murat owing to 
illness. The Pretender wrote from Brussels : " In 
commemorating once more the great popular move- 
ment of the loth of December, 1848, the Plebiscitary 
Committees of the Seine show their unalterable 
attachment to the souvenirs and the principles which 
are dear to me. It is more than ever necessary 
to preserve strict discipline in the ranks of the 
Plebiscitary Party. Work to make the voice of 
France heard." 

And Prince Murat wrote : " More and more the 
Napoleonic spirit is spreading in France. When 
all France, with some . exceptions, is Bonapartist 
in doctrine the coming of Bonaparte cannot be 
long delayed/' 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE EMPRESS A SUCCESSFUL 
DEFENDANT (1913) 

M. Pierre Thierry resides, or did reside, in the little 
town of Luynes, which is dominated by the ruins 
of the old chateau of the Due de Luynes; and 
early in 1907 he began a lawsuit, claiming from the 
Empress Eugenie, " domiciled at Villa Cyrnos, 
Cap Martin," the sum of 4,800,000 francs. How 
did M. Pierre Thierry come to be, as he alleged, a 
creditor of the Empress for so large a sum as 
;^ 192,000? M. Thierry's story may be summarised. 
It is, of course, ex parte. 

In 1855, Napoleon III., finding himself short of 
cash, borrowed 3,000,000 francs (;!^ 120,000) at four 
per cent, of M. Martin Thierry, a wealthy shipowner 
of Nantes, who disappeared in 1862, and died in 
1865. The loan was repayable, with interest, on 
July I, 1870. On that date Pierre Thierry, grand- 
nephew of Martin Thierry, and claiming to be 
his grand-uncle's heir-presumptive, demanded pay- 
ment of the Emperor. Napoleon III., it was alleged 
by M. Pierre Thierry, recognised the validity of 
his claim as heir-presumptive of his grand-uncle, 
and, being unable to pay, gave a new bill, promising 
to liquidate the debt in fifteen years from July i, 
1870. 

The Emperor's alleged promissory note was as 
follows : — 
287 



288 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Napoleon, by the Grace of God and the National will, 
Emperor of the French, to all present and to come, greeting ! 

The year 1870, the 4th of July, in presence and at the request 
of our General Aide-de-Camp Reille and our Commandant 
Clary, sous-chef of the staff, who have presented to us MM. 
Dr Caulet, Mayor of Luynes (Indre-et-Loire), and Thierry 
(Pierre), farmer, born at Luynes (Indre-et-Loire), heir-presump- 
tive of the late M. Thierry (Martin), born at Luynes, shipowner, 
deceased abroad, according to the declaration officially made 
to us by the Mayor of Luynes this day. 

For these reasons, and in view of the circumstances, ack- 
nowledging that M, Pierre Thierry is owed the sum of 4,800,000 
francs, at four francs per cent, per annum, interest included, at 
this date, on a sum of 3,000,000 francs at four francs per cent, 
per annum, which had been handed to us as a loan, in the year 
1855, by the late M. Martin Thierry, and payable on July ist, 
1870. 

Consequently, and in view of the declarations of the Mayor 
of Luynes, acknowledging as good and valuable the said 
declarations ; 

We promise 
to repay this sum from our personal fortune the ist of July, 
1885, into the hands of M. Pierre Thierry, here present, and 
accepting the present agreement in the presence of the persons 
accompanying him. In faith of which we declare the present 
contract imprescriptible and insaissable [not to be distrained]. 

Tel (sic) est notre volonte. 

Given at Paris, under our reign, the day and year specified. 

It may well be wondered why M. Pierre Thierry 
did not present the promissory note in 1885. His 
reply was that it was lost. " Fearing the Prussians," 
M. Thierry said he concealed the note so carefully 
that he could not find it. He only discovered it 
about 1905, and then he could not commence an 
action for the recovery of the loan as he had not 
sufficient funds. 

It was asked if M. Thierry was certain that he had 
an audience of the Emperor on July ist, 1870, 



A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 289 

and received the paper from the Emperor's hands, 
and how it happened that no trace of this alleged 
debt was found in the secret papers seized at the 
Tuileries after September 4, 1870, or in the papers 
preserved by the Empress Eugenie. In 1855 
the Emperor was at the height of his power. The 
Treaty of Paris (1856) had marked the end of 
the Crimean war; and when the Emperor was 
asked why he did not demand the payment of a 
war indemnity by Russia, Napoleon III., who 
had good reasons for conciliating the enemy of 
1 854- 1 85 5, answered, " France is rich enough to 
pay for its glory ! " 

The Emperor was married, and it was the year 
of the first Universal Exhibition, for the purposes of 
which the Palais de ITndustrie, in the Champs 
Elysees, had been built. France was indeed rich, and 
the Emperor all-powerful. He certainly borrowed 
money, and also made advances to the State from 
his civil list, which was of the respectable figure 
of ^1,600,000 per annum. He improved out of his 
privy purse part of the Sologne, and fertilised the 
Landes and properties at Ox and Labenne. But he 
paid off his loans in France as he had liquidated those 
which he made in England when he was first an 
exile here. He also repaid what he borrowed 
on account of the coup d'etat which placed him on 
the throne, giving monthly drafts of from 20,000 to 
50,000 francs upon his civil list. Still, the story 
of the first promissory note which he gave to 
Martin Thierry, about which nothing was known, 
was surprising, and even more astonishing was that of 
the renewed bill alleged to have been given to 
Pierre Thierry. 



^go EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

A Paris lawyer expressed this opinion : " Every 
document acknowledging a debt is evidence in a 
court of law. In principle it must be registered; 
but the Thierry document, coming from the Sovereign, 
was not subject to registration. It must, therefore, 
be ascertained if the signature is genuine; if the 
document is authentic; but even if it should be 
proved to be authentic it would now be null and void 
owing to the lapse of thirty years since the trans- 
action, if the person concerned, as appears probable, 
has not performed any ' acte interruptif de la 
prescription ' [i.e. if the alleged debt has not been 
'kept alive']." 

Not unnaturally, exception was taken to the form 
of the document said to have been given by the 
Emperor. The Emperor never wrote, in documents 
emanating from him personally, "'our' general," 
but " ' the ' general " ; nor would he have written 
" ' our ' Commandant Clary," more especially as 
the Comte Clary in question (later of Chislehurst) 
was a simple captain on July i, 1870, and was only 
promoted to be commandant a fortnight afterwards, 
because, after applying to serve in the campaign, 
he, after the declaration of war, consented, at the 
request of the Empress, to remain with the Prince 
Imperial. Again, the rank of " sous-chef " of the 
general staff did not exist in 1870. At that date 
there was neither chef nor sous-chef of the general 
staff. Marshal Vaillant had been " Major-General 
of the Army " during the war with Italy, and 
Marshal Leboeuf had discharged the same functions 
at the outbreak of the war in 1870; but there 
was no " chef d'etat-major general " until after the 
war, when the army was reorganised. One cannot. 



A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 291 

therefore, imagine a simple captain " sous-chef 
d'etat major." 

In the opinion of some French lawyers, proceedings 
should have been taken by the claimant, not against 
the Empress, but against the State. The plaintiff's 
" statement of claim " was ridiculed ; it was described 
as a document " which might have been drawn 
up by some village scribe." 

There was, indeed, it was affirmed, a Napoleon who 
played a part in this farcical business, but it was not 
Napoleon III. Napoleon I., several years before the 
" coup d'etat of Brumaire," seized, in 1797, at Venice, 
during his Italian campaign, the property of one 
Jean Thiery (with one " r "), a French navigator, 
engaged in commerce, who is said to have died 
on the banks of the Arno in September, 1676 ! Now, 
would not the present claimant, Pierre Thierry (with 
two " r's "), of Luynes, be also one of the heirs of 
that Jean Thiery, whose fortune is stated to have 
amounted to 59,549,000 francs (;^ 2,381,960)? The 
heirs of that Jean Thiery, whose numbers have 
gone on increasing since 1676, at various times 
brought sensational actions against the State in order 
to recover the fortune which they coveted. 

The question may well be asked, Why did the 
young General of the Directory, afterwards Napoleon I., 
confiscate the navigator's millions? The explana- 
tion is given in the reports of a debate in the 
National Assembly in 1791. " For the sake of 
humanity " — so runs one of the reports of those 
proceedings — " the National Assembly ought to come 
to the succour of those individuals " (so the heirs of 
Jean Thiery were described), " 2000 in number, 
who, although they were recognised by the Courts as 



292 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON- 

the legitimate heirs of Jean Thiery, were unable 
to obtain from the Republic of Venice the succession 
which they claimed without the protection, of the 
Government. From a political point of view it 
concerns France to see that those sums of money 
should be returned to France." 

Several years later Bonaparte promised that they 
should be returned. The Tribunal of the Seine 
delivered five judgments (in 1822, 1826, 1827, 1831 
and 1833) acknowledging that the rights of the 
heirs were legal. Despite these decisions, however, 
the Courts were unable to order the restitution of 
the succession to Jean Thiery's numerous heirs. 
The Minister of Finance confirmed this view in 
1890, stating that Bonaparte's action in taking 
possession, by order of the Directory, of the Thiery 
millions and the documents concerning them was an 
act of Government subject to the control and judgment 
of Parliament only. 

A commission appointed by the Chamber of 
Deputies met on the 29th of May, 1890, and 
reported to Parliament that the Thiery inheritance 
existed, and that the claims of the heirs were perfectly 
legitimate; " the facts," said the commission, " are 
incontestable." I quote textually from the report 
of the commission : 



That Bonaparte, who, in 1797, became master of Italy by 
force of arms, seized, in the name of the French State, and 
by virtue of the orders which were regularly given to him by 
the Directory, the Thiery property. 

That all the attempts made by the heirs since that epoch 
have been w^ithout result; and that, finally, the State remains 
the detainer of the monies, which have never been returned 
[to the rightful owners]. 



A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 293 

On the 1 8th of March, 1891, the question came 
before the Chamber of Deputies. M. Letellier, the 
" reporter," or, as we say, the chairman, of the 
commission, declared that " if the State, in the 
exercise of its sovereign power, had believed, in 
the exceptional and urgent circumstances, that it 
could use funds of which it was only the depositary 
and administrator, it had no right to take possession 
of the monies and use them as against the wishes of 
legitimate owners." 

On the 1 6th of November, 1892, M. Thomon, then 
the " reporter " of the commission, informed Parlia- 
ment of the conclusions arrived at by that body. 
Parliament could not be considered either as a legal 
tribunal or as a court of appeal. It had neither the 
qualifications nor the competency to decide as to the 
validity of the petitions formulated by the heirs 
concerning the filiation of the descendants of Jean 
Thiery, or upon the value of the different appeals 
brought since 1676. 

The effect of all this may be summed up in 
a sentence. The law courts declared their incom- 
petency to decide the questions at issue, and referred 
them to Parliament ; Parliament replied that the matter 
did riot come within its scope, and remitted the case 
back to the tribunals ! 

M. Thierry said in 1907 : " I have taken, but 
vainly, numerous steps with Government after 
Government. My claims are just and legitimate. 
The heaping up of the millions has scared everybody. 
Lately, M. Rouvier, when he was in power, declined 
to let anybody speak to him on the subject. Had 
I wished to do so, I could have entered into 
possession, with my co-heirs, of this fortune. A 



294 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

German banker offered to undertake an energetic 
campaign for the purpose. I refused this offer, 
however, from a feeling of patriotism which you 
will understand." 

While the whole story is of singular interest, it is 
to be observed that the claim made upon the Empress 
Eugenie as the surviving representative of her 
husband was based upon a loan alleged to have 
been made to the Emperor in 1855 and renewed 
in 1870 for a second period of fifteen years. At the 
date of the alleged loan (1855) of, as it was stated 
to have been, ;^ 120,000 the Emperor's civil list 
was ^1,000,000 per annum; later it was increased. 

The " Thiery " case terminated, after two hundred 
and thirty-eight years, on December 10, 19 13, 
when the Paris Court rejected a claim by a widow, 
Mme Cotton, a direct descendant of Jean Thiery, 
who sought to recover from the Republic ;^ 800,000 
in respect of losses sustained by previous heirs and 
herself. The Court now held that Bonaparte, in 
seizing the property in 1797, acted in his public 
capacity as representative of the State, and therefore 
no action could lie against the French Government 
for what it had done. 

As a consequence of this judgment in 19 13 no 
action could lie against the Empress Eugenie, 
who had been annoyed for nearly seven years by the 
vexatious proceedings instituted by M. Pierre 
" Thierry," to say nothing of the expense incurred by 
her in defending the case. 



CHAPTER XXX 

LAMPOONING THE EMPRESS 

Lou6 par ceux-ci, bMm6 par ceux-lk, me moquant des sots, 
bravant les m^chants, je me hsite de rire de tout, de peur 
d'etre obligd d'en pleurer. — Beaumarchais, 

United States journals which have reached me 
from time to time since the appearance of my 
two previous volumes show the interest taken by 
the Americans in the Empress. Reading some of 
the letters sent across the Atlantic by Paris Corre- 
spondents, I freely admit that English biographers, 
or would-be biographers, of the illustrious lady are 
painfully dull, distressingly sober, by comparison 
with the alert, quick-witted Americans, whose 
irresponsibility and occasional disdain for his- 
torical accuracy we can only envy without daring 
to imitate. 

What could be more attractive to the newspaper 
reader than three columns of small type (dated 
Paris, May 15, 1910) prefaced by the headings: — 

AGED EUGENIE FINALLY FORGIVES AND IS 
PREPARING FOR HER END 

Ex-Empress of Beauty, Power, and Fashion burns 
her Proofs and stops her Lawsuits in Christian Abnega- 
tion — Last of a Great Romantic Figure who has been 
frequently and terribly calumniated 
295 



296 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

The writer of this dazzling " story " (that, I am told, 
is the technical name for these " personal " articles, 
and it seems a sufficiently appropriate title) is 
gifted with a style at once direct and penetrating. 
He is sparing of his words, but lavish of his 
" thrills," which permeate every paragraph. 

The most fortunate and beautiful of g"irls, the most brilliant 
and powerful of women, forgives the world her vast 
unhappiness. 

Eugenie, great romantic figure, one-time Empress of the 
French and arbiter of fashion, is aged, tottering, preparing 
to die. 

She has been the most slandered woman in the world. Even 
now the French papers cannot leave her alone. 

There will be no Memoirs. The cable recently flashed 
M. Pietri's formal communication over the world. Any 
alleged writing of hers will be spurious. What the communica- 
tion did not state, however, is that Eugenie burned her 
Memoirs, only this year (igio), in a great act of Christian 
renunciation. 

The most slandered woman in the world pardons everybody. 

Women worshipped her dazzling success — a Cinderella. 
One day she was a poor Spaniard, visiting Paris with her 
widowed mother, in a cheap flat of the Place Vendome. 
The next day she was a beloved and loving Empress, with 
the entire police vainly trying to silence her detractors. They 
exiled young men for boasting that they had danced with 
her at Biarritz. They imprisoned women for saying that she 
had been engaged to Ossuna, and had a shameful secret in 
her birth. 

Eugenie's enemies, to complete her illegitimacy, destroyed 
the pages of the parish registers at Arevalo. Then, to 
perfect their work, they circulated word that Napoleon III. 
had caused the destruction of the record page to conceal her 
fatherless state. 



LAMPOONING THE EMPRESS 297 

When M^rim^e offered his testimony, years after, they 
called him Eugenie's lover. . . . M^rim^e had taken them 
(the mother and daughter) to the Prince President's reception, 
where Eugenie first met Napoleon. 

With these facts (sic) the Bonaparte family tried to break 
the match. They sneered at the Montijo titles, brought out 
the grandfather, Kirkpatrick, bankrupt Malaga raisin merchant, 
and took up Eugenie's roving life. 

** Have you heard of M^rim^e? " laughed De Persigny. 

*' M^rim^e is a great writer," said Napoleon. 

** He writes Eugenie's letters to you. Mother, daughter 
and newspaper man concoct the beautiful letters that you 
cherish. Really, it was not worth making the coup d'6tat to 
arrive at that." 

Thus it was always known why Eugenie hated the Bonaparte 
family. She could forgive political counsels against her, 
but not the powerful ones who never ceased to steal her 
reputation. 

The Empress could not notice a man without his being 
called her lover. . . . Prince Henri de Reuss, conducting the 
Emperor and Empress through his apartments, tried to hurry 
them through his bedroom, but Eugenie would not hurry, 
gaily inquisitive. It was enough. Next day all Paris knew 
that Eugenie had been caught in Reuss's bedroom. 

She lived in a house of glass. Thousands of eyes spied 
on her, and thousands of letters of those times have been 
published. From them and a hundred memoirs it is certain 
that Eugenie was a faithful wife. She flirted to the limit, 
but without real peril. . . . The number of befooled men will 
never be counted. 



As soon as she had a son, they found new subjects for 
slander. Avarice was her vice, they said. Eugenie was 
squeezing the gold out of France by stock-rigging, not being 
content to systematically fob the Civil List. 

In Beaumarchais' words, " I hastened to laugh, 



298 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

lest I should be obliged to cry," when I read what is 
printed above merely as a curiosity, an example 
of the many despicable slanders on the Empress 
which have found their way into the papers in many 
countries between 1871 and 19 16. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE PRINCE WHO LIVED AT 
BAYSWATER 

Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte was a fairly- 
frequent visitor at Chislehurst and at Farnborough 
Hill from the year of the arrival of the Imperial 
Family in England until his death, in Italy, in 
November, 1891. He was the son of Lucien 
Bonaparte, first Prince of Canino, a brother of 
Napoleon I., and, even at seventy-four, was a 
replica of his uncle, the Great Emperor. Lucien, 
like his cousin Jerome (father of the Princes Victor 
and Louis), was a little taller than his renowned 
uncle. Looking at him as he faced you in the 
library at his Bayswater residence, you might almost 
have imagined that it was the " Little Corporal " 
who stood before you; his frock coat was tightly 
buttoned, his hands were clasped behind his back. 
The Prince Imperial, often as he appeared in the 
West End, and less frequently in the city, passed 
unnoticed unless he chanced to be in Pall Mall 
or St James's Street; but everybody turned to 
look at Prince Lucien as he strolled in the Broad 
Walk, or roamed through the West End in quest of 
books, or waited on the platform at Charing Cross 
or Waterloo for the train which was to take him to 
Chislehurst or Farnborough Hill. 

Many will remember him, in a big arm-chair, 
in that great room at Norfolk Terrace, ever willing to 
299 



300 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

talk about literature. Books everywhere, in their 
cases reaching to the ceiling — seven or eight rooms full 
of them : a miniature British Museum library. 
Books in all languages — the majority works on 
scientific subjects; for Louis Lucien Bonaparte was 
savant to his finger-tips. Concerning his own 
Herculean literary productions he was very reticent; 
but, by persistent questioning, he could be induced to 
satisfy a visitor's curiosity. 

" You did not know I was born in England — at 
Thorngrove, Worcestershire, on January 4th, 181 3; so 
you see I am an old man now. When I was born my 
father, Lucien Bonaparte, was in captivity. After 
Waterloo my family lived in Italy, and there I wrote 
my first books. When I returned to France the 
Corsicans elected me as their representative in the 
Assembly. Not long afterwards I became a member 
of the Assemblee Legislative by the votes of 120,000 
electors of the Seine. In 1852 I was nominated 
Senator, and simultaneously received the titles of 
Prince and Highness. With that exception I have 
never taken the remotest interest in politics, for which 
I have an intense repugnance; and I have devoted 
nearly the whole of my life to scientific research. My 
favourite study has always been chemistry. But I 
have devoted many years to the completion of a dic- 
tionary of all the European languages, intended for 
the use of linguistic students. I have some thousands 
of volumes here, as you may see. I am a great lover 
of books, and spend every shilling I can spare upon 
them. Many hundreds have not been bound, because 
I could not afford it. 

" Yes — a great many of these works are from my 
pen. Here is a Bible which I have translated, for the 



THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 301 

first time, into Basque du Labourd. Here is the Book 
of Genesis, translated into the langue du Guipuscoa, 
of which I was one of the translators. Here is the 
Book of Leviticus, treated similarly. The Psalms are 
here translated into Dutch; Psalm cl. into Spanish; 
the Epistle of St Matthew into Neapolitan, Venetian, 
Milanese, Piedmontese, Corsican, Italian, Low Scotch, 
the Devonshire dialect and many other languages. 
There is the Apocalypse in all kinds of Southern 
languages, and there are the Apocryphal Books com- 
plete in Gaelic Scotch. In these cases there are 
numerous works, mostly Biblical, in every language — 
Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, 
and Danish. This work, published in London in 
1863, took me a long time to complete; it is a Morpho- 
logical classification of the European languages, 
adapted by me for my Comparative Vocabulary. I 
suppose I have issued of this kind of publication 
about two hundred and twenty-one works up to 
now (1887). I worked very hard years ago; but 
that is all over now. I used to work fifteen hours a 
day without feeling the strain; but now I have 
to content myself with two or three hours a day, for 
that is all I can stand. 

No- — I do not think I shall ever return to France. 
I love England, and am thoroughly happy here. I 
almost look upon myself as one of you now — I have 
lived here so long. Before you go let me show you a 
painting of my father. It is considered an admirable 
likeness. This bust is one of my mother. Those 
pictures over there have all interesting histories.'' 

This great scholar, whom many will doubtless con- 
sider the most distinguished member of the House of 
Bonaparte, died within four years after the conversation 



302 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

here recorded. His remains were brought to England 
from Italy and interred at St Mary's Roman Catholic 
Cemetery, Kensal Green, in the presence of several 
hundred people. At the Requiem Mass previously 
celebrated at the Church of St Mary and All Angels, 
Bayswater, Queen Victoria was represented by Lord 
Romilly; and, besides Mr Clovis Bonaparte (the son) 
and his wife, there were present at the funeral 
Monsignor Goddard, Count Ferraro, the Rev. 
Father David, O.S.F. (Prince Louis Lucien's 
confessor), and Dr Owen (one of Queen Victoria's 
physicians). By the Prince's wish, the remains were 
deposited in a sarcophagus constructed after his own 
designs. The body was conveyed to the grave in an 
oak coffin, with removable sides and lid. When the 
coffin had been deposited in its place the sides 
and the lid were removed, and it was then seen 
that the Prince reposed on a mattress covered with 
violet satin edged with gold fringe. He was in 
Court garb, with ' his Oxford gown, and all his 
orders. There were " no flowers, by request." 

The mourners read : 

Here in this sarcophagus lies Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 
Senator of France, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 
and Doctor of the University of Oxford ; son of Lucien 
Bonaparte, the most distinguished brother of Napoleon the 
First, and First Prince of Canino. He was in early life a 
student of chemistry, and in his old age devoted to comparative 
philology. Born at Thorngrove, near Worcester, January 
4th, 1813 [a space for the date of the death was left vacant]. 
" Miserere mea Deus secundum magnum miserecordiam 
tuam; Christe Redemptor mundi; Deus, salvam me fac; 
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro Nobis." 

The wife of Prince Louis Lucien was the daughter 
of a Florentine sculptor. After living with her 



THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 303 

husband nearly twenty years a separation was 
arranged, but the Princess, although agreeing to 
live apart, would not consent to have the marriage 
annulled, as she was proud of the name of Bonaparte. 
The Princess lived principally on an allowance 
from the Empress Eugenie, supplemented by what 
she got at one time by showing the historical 
house at Ajaccio (the maison Bonaparte) in which she 
resided, and in which Napoleon I. was born. A 
Princess of the House of Bonaparte acting as 
caretaker of a famous residence and " turning an 
honest penny " by showing it to inquisitive excur- 
sionists ! It was even so. Princess (Clemence) 
Bonaparte died on November 14, 191 5, at St Joseph's 
Home, Mare Street, Hackney, London. She left 
all her property (valued at ;^994, 4s. 6d.), " whether 
in possession or reversion," to Mrs Laura Elizabeth 
Brooke, 6 Alexander House, St Mary's Terrace, 
Paddington. The Princess had resided for many 
years at 2 Powis Square, Bayswater. 

Prince Lucien had a staunch friend in the late Sir 
Henry Drummond Wolff, G.C.B.,G.C.M.G., for some 
years our Ambassador to Spain, who, in his enter- 
taining reminiscences, * gives a highly-interesting 
appreciation of the Prince. Pointing out that 
Prince Lucien was not only a great philologist, 
but an eminent chemist, having a special penchant 
for the study of poisons, with the view of utilising 
them for the benefit of humanity. Sir Henry says : 

Prince Louis Lucien was high in the confidence of the 
Emperor Napoleon IIL, and I believe was one of the guardians 

*" Rambling Recollections." Two vols. Macmillan & Co. 
Limited. igo8. 



304 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

appointed to the Prince Imperial. He was much depressed 
by the death of the latter, and, though he had always led a 
very secluded life, was still more of a recluse afterwards. 
The downfall of the Empire seriously injured his financial 
position, though I beheve he inherited some money from his 
nephew, Mr Stuart, the son of Lord Dudley Stuart, who 
had married his sister. Mr Gladstone, who had a great 
respect for him on account of his literary quaHties, conferred 
on him an English pension, being enabled to say with 
truth that he was a British subject, as he was born at 
Thorngrove, in Worcestershire. 

In feature, the Prince presented a striking resemblance to 
the Emperor Napoleon I. . . . When about sixteen, he had 
written a poem against the Papacy, which, later in life, 
however, he upheld and reverenced. He was a perfect 
encyclopaedia of learning, ancient and modern. He had two 
semi-detached houses in Westbourne Grove, now called 
Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater. In one of them he lived ; but 
he devoted the other to science, forming a magnificent 
philological library, and converting the cellars into a chemical 
laboratory. In his library might be read the inscription : 
" O beata solitudo ! O sola beatitudo ! " 

Some of Sir Henry Wolff's relatives had known 
Prince Louis Lucien in Florence, where the Prince- 
savant passed the early years of his manhood. At 
their London house they received their friends of all 
nationalities every evening, and here the first 
cousin of Napoleon HL once, in 1856, met, among 
other revolutionaries, Orsini, who had recently 
escaped from his prison at Mantua. This unexpected 
rencontre greatly annoyed the Prince, who, later — 
after Orsini's attempted assassination of the Emperor 
and Empress — " broke " with the would-be assassin. 

When the war of 1870 broke out, writes Sir Henry, 
" the Prince came to me at the Athenaeum Club, 
of which we were both members, and, curiously 
enough, took me in his carriage with the Bonaparte 



THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 305 

liveries to the door of the Prussian Embassy, where 
I endeavoured to obtain some authentic news. , . . 
At the fall of the Empire the Prince naturally lost 
his allowance [from the Emperor], as well as his 
pay as Senator, and, having made some bad invest- 
ments, he was at one time reduced to considerable 
pecuniary straits." I believe he received a Civil 
allowance in recognition of his scientific attainments. 
He had intended to leave his valuable library and his 
collection of chemicals and metals to the British 
Museum, but technical difficulties stood in the way of 
his desire. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, CANROBERT AND 
NAPOLEON III. 

There was discovered, in 1906, under a humble 
roof at Limoges, an old soldier named Liautrou 
who was Marshal Bazaine's orderly when Metz 
capitulated in October, 1870. Napoleon IIL gave 
the Marshal the command of the army of Metz one 
wretched evening, when he was dining at Bazaine's 
quarters in the early days of the war. And this is 
Liautrou' s story : 

I was serving at table. I can see the Emperor 
now — his pale face, his expressionless eyes, his 
haggard look, mais toujours son air de brave homme. 
The Emperor was all goodness : he wept when 
he offered Bazaine the sole command. Oui, monsieur, 
il pleurait. Pauvre souverain ! We arrived at 
St Privat. That morning Bazaine appeared on 
the battlefield, but he did not remain long. About 
six o'clock in the evening I took him his dinner 
in one of those little wicker baskets used in the army. 
I had a great deal of trouble to find the Marshal; 
the bullets whistled round me, and with my basket I 
was a sorry figure. I should have preferred having 
a " flingot " in my hand, and taking my part in the 
concert. 

Well, at last, near Fort St Quentin 1 met Marshal 
Leboeuf. " Pardon," I said, " Monsieur le Mare- 

306 



BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, CANROBERT 307 

chal, but can you tell me where I shall find Monsieur 
le Marechal Bazaine? " 

" Ah, it's you, Liautrou ? Well, go that way." 
He put me on the right track, and at last I found my 
chief in a small town — Flappeville. He was 
installed in a very nice house, from which the panic- 
stricken people had fled. The Marshal lived there 
very quietly ; there he was in his arm-chair, indifferent 
to the appeals of Canrobert, who sent him message 
after message. 

Canrobert — there is a man whom one can talk about. 
Canrobert was full of aches and pains; he had 
to be helped on his charger. Once in the saddle, 
though, he remained in it. While Canrobert was 
fighting like a lion at St Privat, Bazaine, after dinner, 
strolled towards the fort of St Quentin, " to see,'' 
he said, " what was going on." His two nephews, 
Adolphe and Achille Bazaine, lieutenants in the 
cavalry, had been in the fighting. Adolphe was 
wounded — a scratch in one leg. They used to say, 
entre nous, that he did it himself; but perhaps that 
was only gossip. Well, his uncle decorated him ! 
Yes, gave him the cross — for that ! The wound 
must have been very slight, for it did not interfere 
with his duties. Things went from bad to worse. 
Nobody knew what to do. We marched from defeat 
to defeat. 

(The old soldier, much affected, turned his straw hat 
between his fingers. His bright eyes were dry, but 
his grave voice seemed wet with tears.) 

We shut ourselves up in Metz. It was a dreadful 
time. Hitherto we had been beaten, but we had 
defended ourselves. It was doing nothing that 
wore us out. Then came famine. All that force 



3o8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

shut up in Metz, helpless ! The soldiers had nothing 
to do but boil their pots — ^when there was anything 
to cook ! Bazaine left his house less and less. 
At last one day a brigadier (a corporal) brought into 
Metz news of the defeat at Sedan. 

I know nothing about history. I have never 
opened a book in my life, for the very good reason 
that I can't read. On the other hand, I have 
always kept my eyes open, and I can tell you that it 
was indeed a corporal of artillery who was the first 
to inform Bazaine of the fall of the Empire and the 
proclamation of the Republic. The Marshal gave 
the corporal the military medal and made him 
sergeant. I recollect distinctly, and can repeat to 
you now, word for word, one thing which the Marshal 
said on that occasion. I must, however, tell you 
that everybody was beginning to talk about Bazaine; 
they thought he had behaved very strangely, and 
they began to murmur tout bas — bien bas. We 
were on the watch, and I heard the Marshal say, 
" Je ne servirai jamais la Republique ! " Yes, I 
heard him say that ! After Sedan he never budged. 
He waited. What? . . . You can never tell. He 
was always shut up in his house. 

He never visited the troops. Never did he set foot 
within the hospitals, which were swarming with 
the sick. Never did he mount his horse; and he 
was getting fat ! The troops chafed. Bazaine was 
obliged to give way to Canrobert to some extent, 
so there were two sorties on a small scale. The 
word " treason " began to be heard. The other 
chiefs appeared to be modelling themselves upon, 
Bazaine. They were all asking themselves, " Where 
are we going? " 



BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, CANROBERT 309 

There were two decent men with Bazaine — 
Canrobert and Jarras. The latter used to upset 
Bazaine; he was always arguing. 

Leboeuf? A sluggard — quite useless. He was 
never seen at the councils. There was also the 
chief of the artillery — Soleille. He was another 
faineant, an incapable. His likeness to Napoleon 
HI. was extraordinary. We used to say he must 
be the Emperor's son. 

Conferences were often held. Canrobert and 
Jarras always attended them. They treated Bazaine 
to hard words sometimes. On his staff was a 
brilliant officer, Captain Comte de Gudin — a capable 
man ; and how brave ! He had been in the 
Cuirassiers — they were all killed at Reichshofen. 
Soleille told Bazaine exactly what he thought of 
him. I do not know if Soleille had got hold of any 
of the Marshal's secrets, but Bazaine seemed to 
be afraid of him. Jarras, as I told you, was always 
arguing, but seldom lost his temper. One day, 
however, there was a stormy scene, and Jarras 
told Bazaine he was a do-nothing. Yes, Jarras used 
that very word, " faineant," to the Marshal, his 
chief. 

How do I know? 

I must tell you that the councils of war were held 
in a room over the kitchen. The dining-room was 
overhead, the dishes being sent up by a lift. We used 
to listen at the lift. I recollect that Canrobert 
was always for making an attempt to break through 
the Prussian lines. One day he said abruptly to 
Bazaine, " Our horses are without straw, without 
hay; they will starve; yet outside Metz there is 
plenty of both hay and straw." Bazaine shrugged 



3IO EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

his shoulders : " You go out, then, as you are 
so brave ! " "I am not master," growled Canrobert. 
Once, however, Bazaine did permit a sortie to be 
made by three regiments of voltigeurs and a zouave 
regiment. Bazaine had always near him a phot- 
ographer, wearing private clothes and taking his 
meals at the Marshal's table. I remember, too, 
the interpreter — a charming fellow, a native of Metz. 
When the siege began he was a simple soldier, but 
the Marshal made him sous-lieutenant. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III. 

Was Napoleon III. the legitimate son of King Louis 
of Holland.^ Doctor Corvisart, the doctor of 
Napoleon I., and the medical attendant of nearly all 
the Imperial Family, averred, according to Baron 
d'Ambes, * that " Louis Bonaparte was not the 
father of any of Queen Hortense's children." The 
father of one of them was, we know, the Comte de 
Flahault, and Napoleon III. acknowledged De 
Morny to be his illegitimate brother. D'Ambes 
contends, in great detail, but half-heartedly, that 
Napoleon I. was not only the uncle, but the father, 
of Napoleon III. The King of Holland himself 
is credited with the written statement that " not 
a drop of Bonapartist blood ran in the veins of 
Louis Napoleon. . . . But, as he will never come 
to a throne, and as I do not wish to make a 
scandal ... it does not matter." Of Napoleon 
Charles, the eldest son of Queen Hortense (the 
Great Emperor's stepdaughter, daughter of the 
discarded Empress Josephine), D'Ambes says : 
" He has all the appearance of being the child 
of Napoleon I. Of the second son, I can say 
nothing. As to the third (Napoleon III.), I 

* " M6moires in^dits sur Napoleon III." Par le Baron 
d'Ambes. Recueillis et annot^s par Charles Simond et 
M. C. Poinsot. Paris : Soci^t^ des publications litt6raires 
illustr^es. (An English edition has appeared.) 

311 



312 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

hesitate to speak. As to another of Hortense's 
children, admittedly illegitimate, Fran9ois Louis de 
Castel-Vecchio, born at Rome in 1826, he was 
certainly not the son of the ex-King of Holland." 

Despite his " hesitancy " and self-contradictions, 
D'Ambes, in his voluminous and unique " Memorial 
de Chislehurst," adduces much evidence of a certain 
class — a great deal of it supposititious — in support 
of his theory that the Uncle was the father of the 
Nephew, a theory now first advanced in modern 
times, although Corvisart and D'Ambes assert that it 
was much gossiped about at the birth of Napoleon 
HI. (1808) and for many years afterwards. Corvi- 
sart died in 1821, when Baron d'Ambes was 
eight. The latter's information, it seems, came 
to him from the son of a medical man who was a 
colleague of Corvisart at the £cole de Medecine 
(Paris) and discussed the question with Corvisart. * 

When M. Frederic Masson, of the Academic 
Frangaise, speaks, we listen respectfully. He 
has spoken on the question of the paternity of 
Napoleon HI., and demolished the Corvisart- 
D'Ambes theory. M. Masson says : " Not a 
particle of this stupid calumny is true. Everything 
denies and contradicts it; it cannot stand the 
slightest examination. But it cannot be denied that 
it emanated from King Louis himself. From 
thence this absurd story spread, and for sixty years 

* Father of the Doctor Baron Corvisart who was a principal 
medical attendant of Napoleon III. until his Majesty's death 
at Chislehurst, on the 9th of January, 1873. The other 
medico at Chislehurst was Dr Conneau, who shared Prince 
Louis Napoleon's imprisonment in the fortress of Ham 
(1840- 1 846). 



PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III. 313 

people have played at the game of finding fathers for 
Charles Louis Napoleon. Men of genius and men 
of esprit have joined in it. ... I affirm that Charles 
Louis Napoleon (Napoleon II L), born on the 
20th of April, 1808, was, beyond contradiction, 
except by a lunatic, the son of Louis, King of 
Holland, and Hortense de Beauharnais, his wife. 
And it is important to note that this puny infant 
was a seven months' child, that no one believed 
he could live, or that, by virtue of the name he bore, 
he who, on the loth of December, 1848, was 
elected President of the Republic by 5,500,000 
votes, and who, on the 20th of December, 1851, 
was acclaimed President for ten years, would be, on 
the I St December, 1852, chosen as Emperor of 
the French by 7,500,000 votes — that is to say, by 
the unanimity of the country which was at last freed 
from the chains with which Europe had fettered 
it in 1815." ^ 

If any living person is entitled to speak ex cathedra, 
it is M. Masson. Probably no one will be disposed 
to try a fall with him on this or any other point of 
that Napoleonic history which he has probed to 
the lowest depths. 

Baron d'Ambes finds much to excuse in the 
general conduct of Hortense, who was the daughter 
of the Marquis Francois de Beauharnais, the first 
husband of Josephine. Her mother set her daughter 
a bad example. " She loved Tallien, who had 
saved her life in 1794, when she was a prisoner and 
narrowly escaped the scaffold which was mounted 
by her husband, De Beauharnais. Josephine loved 
Barras, Lieutenant Charles, and who besides? I 
* "Revue Hebdomadaire," January 29, 1910. 



314 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

had almost forgotten General Bonaparte, who placed 
an Emperor's crown on her head. I really believe 
she loved him beyond measure, but.it is too certain 
that she deceived him. ' Telle mere arHente, telle 
brulante fille.' It was known in Paris that, during 
her husband's absence, Josephine ' distracted her- 
self ' to such an extent that, as the Duchesse 
d'Abrantes told me, her compromised reputation 
drove from her and her daughter people who 
respected themselves. I know that the Gohier 
family would not allow their son to marry Hortense — 
a marriage desired by Josephine. We know the 
terrible scene which occurred on the return of General 
Bonaparte, who haH heard of his wife's conduct, 
and only pardoned the unfaithful wife at the 
supplications of Hortense and her brother Eugene." 

Josephine was anxious to get her daughter ofF 
her hands — so D'Ambes tells us. After the failure 
with young Gohier she endeavoured to secure 
another youth, one Rewbell, whom Hortense dis- 
liked. Then, at the instigation of Bourrienne, an 
attempt was maHe to capture Jerome Bonaparte * ; 
Lucien, however, bade his brother beware of Hor- 
tense's violet eyes and blonde tresses, and again 
Josephine was foiled : 

What opportunities for the g'Irl to lose her heart at La 
Malmaison ! When Bonaparte, become First Consul, left 
the Rue de la Victoire for the Petit Luxembourg-, and the 
Petit Luxembourg- for the Tuileries, he installed his wife 
and stepdaughter in the entresol of the Palace and bade them 
organise f^tes, receptions and balls both in Paris and at 
La Malmaison. On Thursdays there was a gala dinner ; 
and often there was a theatrical performance. 

I can still hear Junot's wife telling me of the elegances of 
the Consular Court, the flowered white cr^pe robes, the 

* Made King of Westphalia by his brother, Napoleon L 



PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III. 315 

g-arlanded heads, and the merriment which rang through the 
rooms as the First Consul passed through them, feeling- 
already Emperor, but awaiting the moment when he would 
place on his head the heavy crown of glory. How pretty 
Hortense was ! An exquisite blonde, with amethyst eyes, 
supple waist, and harmonious gestures. Her feet were rather 
too small, her teeth rather too large; but what perfect hands 
and ivory nails, beautifully kept ; yet, to satisfy this ardent 
beauty, they could think of nothing better than to throw 
her into the arms of an impuissant invalid and grumbler ! 
It was to court misfortune. 

Naturally Hortense was courted. Whom did she love? 
First she loved Duroc, a smart officer of thirty, who was 
presented to her by Bourrienne, Napoleon's secretary. 
Bourrienne searched for eligible husbands. First, as we 
have seen, he thought of Jerome Bonaparte, then of Lucien ; 
for Hortense's mother ardently desired a Bonaparte for her 
son-in-law, and finally succeeded In getting one. Duroc did 
not throw himself at the girl's feet any more than Gohler and 
Rewbell had done. 

It was about this time that Bonaparte himself made his 
first amorous advances to Hortense. Two days after his 
marriage to Josephine he had left for Italy. It was on his 
return, in January, 1798, after the Congress at Rastadt, 
that he felt himself en rapport with the girl. He 
hesitated for a long time, or rather allowed to ripen slowly 
a passion which he divined would become an Inconvenience, 
but which probably dominated him towards 1801. 

Hortense, far from falling headlong In love with her step- 
father, began by detesting him. She was vexed at her 
mother's remarriage. Then their life In common, the Consul's 
amiability, and especially that magnetism which so few 
women could resist, wore down her shyness, softened her, 
and conquered her by degrees. Bonaparte was her senior 
by fourteen years. Later there was an Infinity of talk about 
these amours. * 

* Later, as we know, Mme de Remusat brought an odious 
charge against Napoleon I. The late Victorien Sardou 
agreed with her; and "La Revue," of April 15, 1909, 
published an article giving Sardou's "confidences" to Dr 
Cabanas on this subject. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

THE EMPRESS, HER SON AND THE 
FAMILY 

Je suis lasse des lis, je suis lasse des roses, 
De leur haute splendeur, de leurs fralcheurs ^closes, 
De toute la beaut^ des grands lis et des roses. 
Votre odeur s'exasp^re dans 1 'ombre et dans le soir, 
Violettes, 6 fleurs douces au d^sespoir, 
Violettes du soir. 

The principal events in which the Imperial lady 
figured between the outbreak of the war with Germany 
in 1870 and 191 1 having been detailed in my two 
previous volumes, I have now to record, in summary 
form, the few incidents of her life in the years 
1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, ending with March, 1916. 

19 1 2. — ^"On the 9th of January the Empress was 
present at St Michael's Abbey Church at the 
annual memorial service for the Emperor Napoleon 
III., only the late M. Pietri accompanying her. 
After the Mass she descended to the crypt (the 
Imperial Mausoleum), where, after the Absolution 
had been given, she closely examined the little 
alterations which had been made by her direction. 
She carried her stick, but did not use it. On the 
following day the Empress left for the Continent, 
en route for Cap Martin, passing through Brussels, 
where she was met at the station by Prince and 
Princess Napoleon, with whom next day she passed 
some hours at their house in the Avenue Louise. 
From Brussels she went to Paris, and so to Cap 

316 



THE FAMILY 317 

Martin. On Christmas Day Mass was celebrated in 
her oratory at Farnborough Hill. It is only on this 
great festival that she wears the Spanish mantilla. 

1913. — The Empress was suffering from a heavy 
cold and a troublesome cough at the end of 19 12, and 
her doctor would not allow her to attend the memorial 
service at the church on the 9th of January this year. 
She soon recovered and the last week of February 
found her, as usual, at Cap Martin, where she 
was visited by the Duchesse de Mouchy. On the 
29th of November she was present at the Jesuits' 
Church, Farm Street, at the service for her old 
friend, Mme de Arcos, as described in another chapter. 
This year the Empress was not at Cowes for the 
" week." In the winter she entertained at Farn- 
borough Hill Prince and Princess Napoleon. In 
the spring she had passed some time at Venice. 
On the 5th of November she attended, at the Chapel 
Royal, St James's, a funeral service for Prince Maurice 
of Battenberg, as noted in the chapter " The 
Empress's Tears." This year the Empress was 
present at all the anniversary services at St Michael's. 
In January a fine of five pounds was imposed by the 
Farnham bench upon the driver of her car for "driving 
to the public danger " in September, 19 12, and 
knocking down a cyclist between Farnham and Alder- 
shot. In the same month (January) she caused a 
notice to be published conveying her " appreciation 
of the many kind inquiries regarding her health, 
and desiring it to be understood that she was then 
much better, her cold not being nearly so trouble- 
some." 

19 14. — The Empress arrived at Cap Martin in the 
third week of February, and in March entertained 



3i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

at Villa Cyrnos Princess Henry of Battenberg for a 
fortnight. This year, during a rather long stay in 
Paris, she visited Fontainebleau, the Musee Carna- 
valet and the Tuileries Gardens. The Empress's 
birthday (May 5) is also the anniversary of the 
death of Napoleon I., and on that day, as usual, there 
was a commemorative service for that Emperor at 
St Michael's, attended only by the servants at Farn- 
borough Hill, her Majesty being then at Cap Martin. 
In the summer she visited the King and Queen 
of Spain and other friends at Madrid. On the 
2 1 St of August the Empress was present, at St 
Michael's, at a votive Mass " for the time of war " 
(August 25), at a Requiem Mass for Pope Pius X. 
and at the customary service on All Souls' Day 
(November 2). 

The Empress took what may prove to be her last 
holiday in the spring and summer. In May she 
motored from Cap Martin to Vintimille and proceeded 
by train to Milan and from thence to Venice. She 
returned from Italy to Paris and left for England 
on the 1 8th of July. Her yacht, Thistle, which was 
erroneously reported to have been disposed of, has been 
recently fitted with a wireless installation. Like the 
Dowager Empress of Russia and her sister. Queen 
Alexandra, the Empress Eugenie has not escaped 
German Press vilification. In December it was 
reported from Madrid that the Spanish edition of the 
" Hamburger Nachrichten " had been seized for 
publishing a scurrilous article upon her Majesty, 
much of whose early life was spent in the Spanish 
capital. In the autumn a wing of her house was 
converted into a sanatorium for wounded officers. 
It has a perfectly equipped operating theatre. Every 



THE FAMILY 319 

day the Empress, unless prevented by indisposition, 
has walked through the eight rooms and chatted 
with the patients. Her Majesty previously gave 
;i^200 to the British Red Cross Society, and from 
the first has closely followed the course of the war 
on large-scale maps. The King and Queen, Princess 
Mary and the Prince of Wales (who were then at 
Aldershot) visited the Empress one Sunday afternoon 
and took tea. 

191 5. — For the first time since, in 1880, the Empress 
made Farnborough Hill her English home, she 
remained there the whole of this year — in fact, she 
had not left it since her return from the Continent 
in July, 19 14. She attended all the services at 
St Michael's except the Mass for M. Pietri on 
December 17. Among her visitors were her nieces, 
the Marquise de Tammamis and the Duchesse de 
Medina Coeli, and a few others. This year, by 
exception, the Empress was in England on the 
I St of June, the date of her son's death in 1879, and 
was present at the anniversary Mass at St Michael's 
on that day. She was accompanied by Prince and 
Princess Napoleon, M. Pietri, Mme d'Attainville, 
Mile Gaubert, Miss Vesey and the members of 
her household. 

Since Prince and Princess Napoleon have been 
the Empress's guests (1914-1916) they have attended 
the Sunday morning service at the oratory, the 
former occupying the seat on her Majesty's right. 
Ordinarily the congregation numbers from ten to 
twelve. Many are the moving scenes which have 
been enacted in the beautiful Abbey Church of 
St Michael, which, with the surrounding lands, was 
the gift of the august widow of the Emperor Napoleon 



320 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

III. to the community of Benedictine monks who 
succeeded the members of the Order of Premontre in 
what had been only a priory. But for simple pathos 
no previous ecclesiastical tableau there approached 
the spectacle witnessed by a privileged few on the 
3rd of September, 19 15, when, at the request of 
the Empress, the first Mass was celebrated in the 
crypt " for all soldiers killed in the war." 

Some few of those who knelt round the venerable 
lady remembered that September 3 is a " date " 
in the history of France, and did not forget, when 
offering their intercessions for the souls of " all 
soldiers killed in the war," that on this day in 1870 
the captive Emperor reached Bouillon, on his way to 
his palatial " prison " at Wilhelmshohe, escorted by 
a Prussian general. 

Those who had not seen the Empress of late were 
agreeably surprised at seeing her look so well. At 
least one — probably only one — could carry his 
thoughts back to that autumn day in 1870 when 
she arrived at Chislehurst after her flight from the 
Tuileries. The Empress followed the Mass with 
her wonted close attention, kneeling and rising with 
no perceptible effort, and, when she left, bestowing 
her sad smile and bow seemingly to each one before 
whom she passed. She has been seen at St Michael's 
oftener of late years than at previous periods. Since 
she instituted the monthly Mass above noted (in 
September, 19 15), she has regularly attended the 
service, usually accompanied by Prince and Princess 
Napoleon and others staying with her. 

I have reluctantly omitted the account given 
by M. Emile Ollivier, in his final volume of his 
great work, " L'Empire Liberal," of the Empress 



i"^^- c> '^ 




The Empress Eugenie in 1915, consoling one of the wounded 

OFiaCERS staying in the SANAIORIUM ESTABLISHED BY HER IMPERIAL 

Majesty at her residence, Faknkorough Hill 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 321 

Eugenie's flight from the Tuileries on the 4th of 
September, 1870, three days after the battle of Sedan 
and the surrender of the Emperor and the French 
army to the victorious Germans. Mr Evans, the 
American dentist, and one of his friends escorted the 
Empress and Mme Lebreton, sister of General 
Bourbaki, from Paris to Trouville, and Sir John 
Montagu Burgoyne, in a letter to Lord Granville, then 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, describes 
how he conveyed the fugitives across the Channel. 

In December, 1912, Barre's statue of Napoleon III. 
was sold at auction in Berlin by the famous firm 
of Heilbronn. With this bust of Napoleon III. the 
whole world may be considered familiar, since it 
supplied the model for the coinage of the Second 
Empire. Its vicissitudes began in 1870, in the 
Franco-Prussian War, before which it was situated 
in a niche outside the Hotel de Ville at Metz. When 
the fortress fell into the hands of the Germans 
the bust was removed and put in a barn. Its 
subsequent history is of the vaguest. The last phase 
was reached when it made thirty pounds under the 
hammer in Berlin. 

The Empress naturally follows the events at the 
theatre of war with the closest attention. One day in 
September, 1914, her visitors included Lord Ports- 
mouth, who was Under-Secretary for War in " C.B.'s " 
Ministry and has interests in Hampshire, the Empress's 
county since 1880. The noble lord found her intently 
studying the maps, and remained to dine with the 
Empress, who, when they had seated themselves at 
table, said apologetically to her guest : " I can offer 
you only a diner de guerre, you know, as my cooks 
have left to join the army in France ! 



322 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

In October, 19 15, a " live " shell was discovered in 
a hedge bounding the Empress's estate, but it would 
have required something more than this curious 
" find " to ruffle her equanimity; she has been long 
past surprises of every kind. " Soldier talk " comes 
naturally to her and forms one of her greatest enjoy- 
ments. For many years her dinner guests have 
included generals and other officers stationed at 
Aldershot. 

In his " Memories," published by Messrs Hutchin- 
son & Co. in 19 1 5, Lord Redesdale relates this very 
curious episode : 

" One afternoon, in 1872, I was all alone in the 
Marlborough Club, when Sleeman, the then steward, 
came into the room surcharged with importance, and 
told me that the Emperor of the French, who was a 
member, was down below and asked permission 
to bring in the Due de Bassano, who was his Lord 
Chamberlain. It was his first visit and I ran down to 
receive him, took him upstairs and established him in 
an arm-chair with the evening paper. After a while 
he called me up and began questioning me as to my 
profession and the various posts at which I had been. 
We had a long talk, for he had to kill time waiting 
for his train. 

" Louis Napoleon, whose faculty of silence is a 
matter of history, was, when he chose, a very agree- 
able talker and his conversation was pointed by 
a certain dry, sardonic humour accentuated by his 
rather saturnine appearance. He was looking miser- 1 
ably ill, his face ashen grey and his lack-lustre eyes 
significant of the pain by which for years he had been 
tortured. His figure was bowed and aged — obviously 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 323 

a man waging an unequal war with disease. He 
talked a good deal about the missionary question 
in China and Corea, upon which he was thoroughly 
well posted, and he also spoke with a great deal of 
feeling about the murder of his men of the Dupleix 
in 1868. After half an hour's talk with him I under- 
stood the charm which he exercised over men and 
women when he chose to do so. I also understood 
that when Kinglake fired all the arrows of bitterness 
at him there could be but one cause — a woman." 

Lord Redesdale has this note on the tragedy which 
robbed the Empress of her beloved son : 

" In June, 1879, London was stirred by the news of 
the death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu war. 
That afternoon Sir Coutts and Lady Lindsay had 
invited a few people to see the pictures at the 
Grosvenor Gallery. As I was going away I met 
Lord Beaconsfield on the stairs. He stopped me. 
' This is terrible news,' he said. ' Yes,' I answered, 
' and I am afraid that the French will accuse our 
people of having deserted him and left him to his 
fate.' ' I am not so sure that they will be wrong,' he 
said, and then, after a pause, he added : ' Well ! 
my conscience is clear. I did all that I could to stop 
his going. But what can you do when you have to 
do with two obstinate women ! ' With that he went 
up the stairs, leaving me under the impression that he 
wished what he had said to be repeated. 

" The Empress over-persuaded the Queen, and the 
Prince went out. It was a wild-cat scheme, for he 
was sent out with no status in the army, and therefore 
with no object, but the Empress thought that being 



324 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

a Bonapartist fighting would give him and the dynasty 
prestige with his people, and so an important life 
which could not but have weighed in the history of 
Europe was sacrificed. He was a gallant lad, with 
good abilities and a great favourite with his contem- 
poraries at our military college, of whom my brother-in 
law was one and a great friend of his. I only met 
him once, but was much struck by his charm of 
manner." 

The Emperor and Empress were often visited at 
Chislehurst by the celebrated actor, M. Frederic 
Febvre, who, at the time these lines are being penned 
(March, 191 6), is still ex-vice-doyen of the Comedie 
Fran^aise. He was honoured with the friendship 
of King Edward, who gave him a walking-stick, 
which the actor proudly displayed when he came 
to London. M. Febvre used to tell this story. While 
the Emperor was still at the Tuileries M. Got, the 
celebrated actor, obtained a private audience of his 
Majesty, with the object of begging him to pardon a 
young man who had been sentenced to transportation 
for publishing a political pamphlet of exceptional 
violence. " How old is your protege? " asked the 
Emperor. " Twenty, Sire." " Has he a mother? " 
" Yes, Sire; she is overwhelmed with grief; the son 
was her sole support." " Has he any talent? " 
" Yes, Sire — an abundance of talent." " What a 
pity it is," said the Emperor, " that he did* not exer- 
cise it to write a fine play, or a fine book ! A 
pamphlet attacking me will be valueless at my death, 
but a fine literary work lasts for ever. I am certain 
that M. Hugo's admirable plays will last longer than 
the ' Chatiments.' " M. Got had drawn up, on behalf 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 325 

of the culprit's mother, a petition, which he handed 
to his Majesty, who, after carefully perusing it, said : 
" Wait a moment, sir, and I will give you a letter to 
take to the Ministry of Marine. You must ask to 
see the Minister himself. You will naturally be 
told that the Minister cannot see you, but, ferhafs, 
if you say that I sent you, he will receive you." The 
actor, having warmly thanked his Majesty, was 
retiring, when the Emperor, in the most kindly 
manner, exclaimed, " But don't let him do it again ! " 
Got duly handed the Emperor's letter to the Minister, 
who read it with the greatest surprise. Having 
consulted the heads of several departments, he turned 
to his visitor, with the remark, "It is done. Monsieur 
Got. The Emperor's orders have been carried out." 
The actor ventured to inquire what the letter had 
contained. " What ! " answered the Minister, " did 
not his Majesty tell you? " " Not a word." Got 
then learnt, for the first time, that the Emperor had 
given orders for the prisoner's immediate release, and 
had added that, if the ship conveying the young 
pamphleteer had already sailed, another vessel was to 
be sent for the purpose of bringing him back safe and 
sound. " Thus," says M. Febvre, in telling the story, 
" everything was done in accordance with the Em- 
peror's orders. I may add — and it is not unimportant 
— that our ' doyen,' Got, was an Orleanist ! " 

As our great King to whom she and the Emperor 
were so attached was a man of moods so is the Empress 
a woman of moods, and the phases of her complex 
character, the shades of her remarkable personality, 
would probably have remained concealed from the 
outer world for ever had not the veil happily been 
lifted by one of her own proteges, one, moreover, who 



326 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

bears a name famous in French literature — the name 
of Daudet. The son (Lucien Alphonse) of the 
creator of the incomparable Alpinist Tartarin 
is always a welcome guest at " The Hill " and at 
Villa Cyrnos, and he has made it one of the objects 
of his life to limn the traits of the Empress and to 
analyse her emotions with an unsurpassed fidelity. 
It is no lay figure that he has studied, but the actual, 
living figure. The Empress — and on this point I can 
speak with certainty — has the greatest dislike for 
publicity; but to this rule she makes an occasional 
exception, as in the instance here indicated, and even 
gives her imprimatur to what is told of her. Similar 
freedom was once accorded to the late M. Gaston 
Calmette, who wrote the memorable " defence " 
of her Majesty which appears in my first volume, 
" The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 19 10." ^ 

The pompous titles (wrote the late Jules Claretie) 
that we see inscribed in the pages, already quite 
yellow, of the last " Almanach Imperial," have 
assumed an aspect of the deepest melancholy by 
reason of their echoes among the pictures of desolation 
and death. The " great dignitaries " of the Empire 
— the Senators of that epoch, in their blue cloth coats 
embroidered with gold palms and sprays of leafage, 
gold thread and spangles; white cashmere breeches 
with gold stripes ; cocked hats with white plumes and 
swords with pearl hilts and embossed eagles— have 
a singular effect at this distance of time. The 
Deputies of that period — already so far off — in their 
black-plumed hats, silver olive branches and waist- 

* M. Calmette, editor of the Paris "Figaro," was 
assassinated in the office of his paper on March 16, 191 4, by 
Mme Caillaux. 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 327 

coats with gold buttons, have not, despite gorgeous 
costumes, retained much prestige in the eyes of the 
young people of to-day. 

Many saw Prince Napoleon for the first time at the 
War Exhibition at Prince's Skating Rink, which 
was formally opened in 19 15 by the Princess. The 
centenary of Waterloo evoked a flood of Napoleonic 
recollections, but no mention of the surviving members 
of the family of the Great Emperor. They are 
very few in number, and, needless to say, the Imperial 
lady at Farnborough is not one of " the family " 
except by marriage. 

The principal survivors entitled to bear the name 
of " Napoleon," or that of " Bonaparte," are Prince 
Victor (head of the House), his brother, Prince Louis 
and the Dowager-Duchess d'Aoste, only sister of the 
two Princes, and widow of the Italian Prince Amadeo, 
who ruled Spain as its King for a brief space previous 
to the accession of Alfonso XI L, father of the present 
Sovereign. 

Then there is Prince Roland Bonaparte (not 
" Napoleon "), the eminent savant, and father of 
Princess George of Greece, whose great inherited 
wealth came from her grandfather on the maternal 
side, M. Frangois Blanc, of Monte Carlo fame. 
Prince Roland is the Croesus of the family. His 
father-in-law left about ^^ 8,000,000, and is reputed to 
have said that he regretted he could not have lived 
a few more years and so increased his " pile." 
Prince Roland is correctly styled " Bonaparte " for 
this little-known reason. When the First Consul 
abandoned the name " Bonaparte " in favour of 

Napoleon," he bestowed that latter name upon all 
the members of his family, excepting his brother 



J 



28 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 



Lucien. Consequently, only the descendants of that 
younger brother of the Emperor — that is, Prince 
Roland and Mr Jerome Bonaparte (who was married 
at New York a year or so ago)— retain the name 
of Bonaparte. 

This double nomenclature has not only puzzled the 
world at large, but it has led to official blundering. 
Thus, two years before his death in Zululand in 1879, 
the banished Prince Imperial was inscribed on the 
lists of Frenchmen liable for service in the army 
under the inaccurate surname of " Bonaparte," while 
the Princes Victor and Louis were rightly entered 
" Napoleon." But in February 19 14 the French 
Ministry of the Interior displayed its ignorance of the 
distinction by officially entering in its records the 
infant son of Prince Victor Napoleon as " Bonaparte." 
This boy must not be forgotten, for, born on January 
23, 19 14, in Brussels, he is the fourth on the list of 
notable survivors of the great Napoleonic (or Bona- 
partist) family. The father of Prince Victor and 
Louis was the son of the great Emperor's brother, 
the King of Westphalia, who is not accorded a 
particularly high place in French history; and that 
Sovereign's consort was the daughter of King 
Frederick I. of Wiirttemberg. Neither Victor nor 
Louis facially resembles the founder of the family, 
but their father was markedly like Napoleon I. 

Prince Victor's last pronouncement was a letter, 
dated April 12, 19 14, addressed to the well-known 
General Thomassin, a former commander of an army 
corps, in which the Pretender declared, as has now 
been proved, that " only a return to the three years' 
service could give the army the strength and cohesion 
necessary to ensure the greatness of France," 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 329 

While Prince Victor is exiled from France, his 
brother, Prince Louis, is free to visit his native 
country whenever he pleases. In July, 19 15, as chief 
of the Russian mission, Prince Louis was attached to 
the staff of General Cadorna, having- left Turin with 
the Italian troops. He had served in the Italian 
army before entering the Russian military service 
and commanding a division. He is the only French 
Prince at the front; the offer of the Due d'Orleans 
to join the French army having been naturally rejected. 
Is he not the Royalist Pretender to the throne of 
France? In 1914-1916 he was, like Prince Victor, a 
refugee in England. 

The Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon have only 
one sister. Princess Lsetitia, Dowager-Duchesse d'Aoste, 
who was born in Paris, and in 1888 married, as his 
second wife, that Due d'Aoste who, in the early 
seventies, had reigned as King of Spain for about 
three years. Princess Lsetitia was born in Paris, but, 
as she was only five years old when the Revolution 
of the 4th of September closed against her the 
gates of the Palais Royal, any memories she may 
have retained of those troubled times must necessarily 
be effaced or dim. She has inherited the stately 
and classical beauty of her Austrian grandmother, 
Queen Adelaide, while something in her whole person 
recalls her father and the cast of the Bonapartes 
before growing embonpoint had marred the regularity 
of the late Prince Napoleon's face. Clever, intel- 
ligent, fond of letters and arts, her father was 
never able to acquire a lasting influence either on men 
or events. Cold, reserved, patient, silent and 
resigned, her mother, the late Princess Clotilde of 
Savoy, , had ever ' been surrounded by respect and 



330 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

admiration — a fitting tribute to the spotless purity of 
her whole life. Princess Laetitia was brought up 
almost entirely by her mother, and was never separated 
from her, either at the Palace of Moncalieri, in 
Piedmont, or at Prangins, in Switzerland. I cannot 
recall any visit, or visits, paid by her to the Empress 
either at Chislehurst, Farnborough, or Cap Martin. 
I have heard that she declined an offer of marriage 
made to her in 1887 by her widower cousin, Prince 
Roland Bonaparte, father of Princess George of 
Greece. 

The birth at Brussels of Prince and Princess 
Napoleon's daughter (March, 19 12) opened the 
floodgates of speculation. What effect, if any, it 
was asked, would the birth of a princess have upon 
the Pretender's future chances of success? " In 
what way," said one of the Prince's friends, " can 
the birth of a princess perturb the Bonapartists ? 
The Napoleonic idea is not based upon dynastic 
heredity. The Prince recalled the fact himself in 
191 1, when he said: 'I don't claim a dynastic 
right. I am a son of modern France. I remain 
faithful to the traditions inculcated by the French 
revolution; sovereignty of the nation, civic equality, 
liberty of conscience and social progress.' " 

Referring to the Republicans who go over to the 
Bonapartists, the Prince's friend said : " These 
Republicans do not wish to destroy the Republic. 
They wish to give it another form. Their idea 
is that Consular Republic of which the Due de 
Broglie has said that it was the most glorious period 
in the history of France. The birth of a son 
might have alarmed them; that of a daughter, on 
the contrary, releases them from all anxiety as to 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 331 

ulterior developments. In other words, there is 
no fear of the Prince following the example of 
Napoleon III. and seeking to make himself Emperor 
after having been elected Prince-President." 

A Brussels friend of Prince Napoleon, who was 
questioned concerning the alleged Bonapartist 
propaganda in the French army, said : 

There are agents provocateurs, and there are no conspirators. 
This is the absolute will of the Prince, who is, above all, 
a partisan of legality. The last circular of the Plebiscitary 
Committee makes this very clear. The Prince, it says, putting 
aside his personal interest, wishes the army to be above 
party quarrels, and forbids his partisans to take any steps 
which would have as a result the compromising of discipline 
or the estrangement of French soldiers from their military 
duties. Those who place themselves outside the law will 
never be admitted among the Prince's followers. It is by 
legal means only that the Prince wishes to be called upon 
to regenerate France ; he detests coups de force ; he would, 
you may be sure, make as good a President of the Republic 
as many others. 

M. Gauthier de Clagny, the well-known Bonapartist, 
was interviewed on the subject : 

" The Prince then aspires to the Presidency of the 
Republic? " asked the interviewer, 

"That is so," replied M. de Clagny. 

" But it could not be accomplished without a coup d'6tat 
or a revolution? " 

" That is a mistake. He could become President of the 
Republic in a most normal manner and by means of absolute 
legality. It would only be necessary to modify three 
legislative acts, in particular the law of 1886 concerning 
members of families which have already reigned in France." 

" But supposing the Prince became President. Would he 
not have too much authority and should we not have to fear 
a return of personal power?" 



332 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

" The situation is not the same as in 1799 and 1851. We 
have had an uninterrupted spell of sixty years' democratic 
government, and the people is no longer the same. The 
Prince understands better than anybody the necessities of our 
epoch and the difference of the conditions of government. 
As regards the birth of a princess, the Prince declares to all 
his partisans that birth cannot confer any right." 

Prince and Princess Napoleon's son, and heir 
to the Pretendership, was born at Brussels on 
January 23, 19 14, and was christened by the Almoner 
of the Belgian Court on May 23, receiving the 
names Louis Jerome Victor Emmanuel Leopold 
Marie. The godfather was General Prince Louis 
(Prince Napoleon's brother) and the godmother the 
Dowager Queen of Italy, who was represented by the 
Duchesse d'Aoste. 

The marriage of Prince Napoleon and Princesse 
Clementine was solemnised at the Chateau of Mon- 
calieri, then the residence of the Prince's late mother, 
on November 14, 19 10. Among the bride's four 
" witnesses " was Mile de Bassano, granddaughter 
of the second Due de Bassano, Grand Chamberlain 
to the Emperor Napoleon III., and daughter of 
the third Duke, who died leaving no issue; conse- 
quently the ducal title is now extinct. Of the 
second Due de Bassano, I have a grateful recollection, 
for on the day after the Emperor's death at Chislc 
hurst he took me into the room where the Empress's 
consort was lying after the body had been embalmed. 
I received many other kindnesses from Mile de 
Bassano's grandfather, and learnt from him much 
which I recorded at the time in the " Morning 
Post." The Bassanos descended from Maret, 
whose devotion Napoleon I. rewarded by ennob- 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 333 

ling him in 1909. Maret owed his fortune 
to journalism, " qui mene a tout, a la condition 
d'en sortir," * and which led him to diplomacy. 
The members of this noted family have been always 
affectionately regarded by the Empress, whose 
principal dame d'honneur was Mile de Bassano's 
grandmother. 

Prince Napoleon has maintained a discreet silence 
since the outbreak of the war which led to his 
departure (with his consort and their two children) 
from Brussels for England. One of his last 
political pronouncements dates from 19 13. On 
December 14 in that year the Comites Plebiscitaires 
de la Seine celebrated the anniversary of Prince 
Louis Napoleon (afterwards Emperor) to the 
Presidency of the Republic (December 10, 1848). 
At a banquet, at which two thousand leading 
Bonapartists were present, the chairman, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Rousset, read a letter from Prince Napoleon 
which concluded with these words : " Parliamentarism 
leads the country to the worst destiny. The day 
will come when the appeal to the people will be 
regarded as the only solution capable of assuring 
to France a strong and democratic Government. 
Have confidence in the future, as I have.— 
Napoleon." 

Mr James Mortimer died at San Sebastian on 
February 24, 191 1, and was honoured with long 
obituary notices in the " Times " and the " Morning 
Post." The " Times " memoir contained this pass- 
age^ 

* This mot has been erroneously attributed to Thiers and 
to Emile de Girardin, but Dr Max Nordau accords the credit 
for it to a Frenchman whose name is unknown in this country. 



334 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

The Emperor Napoleon III., happening to read some articles 
by Mortimer in which his own schemes were very sympathetic- 
ally treated, sent for the writer and expressed his gratitude. 
From this time until his death the Emperor maintained very 
friendly relations with Mr Mortimer. Twice during his 
captivity at Wilhelmshohe Mr Mortimer went to the Emperor 
on missions for the Empress Eugenie; and he was the last 
person to speak to him before the fatal operation in 1873. 
In a biography pubhshed in the "English Magazine" last 
year the story is told of how the Emperor and Empress came 
to select Chislehurst as their EngHsh residence. Mr Mortimer 
received a telegram from the Empress in September, 1870, 
asking him to meet her at Hastings. On his way to Charing 
Cross Station he met a friend, Mr N. W. Strode, who, on 
hearing the news of the Empress's flight, suggested that she 
should come as his guest to his house, Camden Place, Chisle- 
hurst, which was eventually rented by the Emperor and 
Empress. Before the war of 1870 the Emperor provided 
Mr Mortimer with the means to establsh the " London Figaro," 
which made its first appearance on May 17, 1870, and was 
owned and edited by him for fourteen years. Mr Mortimer 
sold the paper in 1884. Some years later the copyright was 
repurchased and presented to him by a friend, but he was 
unable to keep it up, and after six months it came to an end. 

In the " Morning Post " (February 27, 191 1) it was 
stated that : 

Mr Mortimer was born at Richmond, Virginia, in 1833, 
and became the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper at the age 
of twenty-two, an occupation, however, quickly exchanged 
for that of Attache to the American Legation in Paris, where 
he went in 1855, and, soon acquiring an intimate facility in 
the French language, became a Parisian of the brilliant period 
of the Second Empire. Diplomacy took him to Rome and 
St Petersburg, and he gained the friendship of Napoleon III., 
who made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and of the 
Empress Eugenie, whose departure for England after Sedan 
Mortimer was instrumental in arranging. But long before 
this he had left the Diplomatic Service, again turning to 
journalism in i860 as the Paris correspondent of the New 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 335 

York " Express " and other papers. The Franco-German War 
was the occasion of his migration to London, where he scored 
an immediate success with the " Figaro," a journal of a kind 
quite new to the English public. It gained immense popularity, 
and the lively manner in which its motto, " Now step I forth 
to whip hypocrisy," was carried into effect is still well 
remembered. 



In a letter addressed by me to the " Times," I 
remarked that it was curious that no mention of 
Mr Mortimer's presence at Wilhelmshohe is made by 
General Count von Monts in his detailed account of 
events there during the Emperor Napoleon's residence 
at Wilhelmshohe as a captive from early in September, 
1870, until the third week of March, 1871. I 
questioned the accuracy of the assertion that Mr 
Mortimer was " the last person to speak to the 
Emperor before the fatal operation in 1873," and 
observed that the names of all the persons who were 
at Chislehurst during the Emperor's illness were 
known, and that Mr Mortimer's name did not appear 
among them. That he should have been there at one 
time or other while his Majesty was suffering was, 
I added, highly probable. But I have never heard 
that he was the last to speak to the Emperor. My 
letter duly appeared in the " Times," but no reply to 
it was published. 

I think the statement in the " Morning Post's " 
memoir that Mr Mortimer " was instrumental in 
arranging the Empress's departure [from Paris] 
for England after Sedan " wholly inaccurate. Mr 
Evans, the American dentist, has narrated the facts in 
his reminiscences. 

When the daily "London Figaro" was started (May, 
1870, two months before France declared war with 



OJ' 



EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 



Prussia), the working editor of the paper was my 
friend, Mr John Plummer, who, in letters to me, 
dated, " Northwood, Lane Cove River, Sydney " 
(October, 191 1, and January, 1912), said: 

My impression is that Mortimer was subsidised by the French 
Secret Service Fund, but he was very reserved, even to his 
most intimate friends. I had to pen a letter to be shown by 
him to the Emperor. Later on you shall have the whole story 
of the "Figaro." Every account of the manner in which it 
was started is incorrect, especially that furnished by Clement W. 
Scott, who was a perfect stranger to Mortimer. I had a 
couple of short interviews with the Emperor in Paris. Although 
in my eighty-first year I am in good health. 

In his second letter Mr Plummer wrote : 

Your * ' Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire ' ' throws 
a new light on the character of the Emperor and his surround- 
ings, and you have touched upon some rather dangerous 
points with rare skill. Mortimer never told me that the 
Emperor gave him financial assistance, but led me to infer it, 
and the whole of my correspondence with him was penned on 
the understanding that my letters would be submitted to 
the Emperor. My impression is that M. Pietri is acquainted 
with everything. There were also two or three wealthy French 
ladies who had a finger in the pie, but the name of the 
Empress was never mentioned. Mr Evans [the American 
dentist referred to above] was a great friend of Mortimer's. 
It was Sedan which killed the daily issue [of the " London 
Figaro "]. Thenceforth it was a struggle for existence as a 
weekly. 

" How many people know that the Empress Eugenie 
once owned a London newspaper? " asked a writer 
in " London Opinion " in December, 19 12, and 
continued as follows : — 

When her old enemy, Henri Rochefort, escaped from the 
penal colony of New Caledonia, she was in despair ; and when, 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY ^^^7 

on his way to England, he announced his intention of reviving 
his bitter journal, "La Lanterne," in London (of course 
he dared not cross the borders of France) the Empress 
was prostrated by the fear of his pitiless rancour. But among 
the visitors to the Imperial exile at Farnborough was James 
Mortimer, a well-known journalist of those times ; and he hit 
upon the idea of shutting Rochefort out of London by forestalling 
him. Mortimer, therefore, liberally financed by the Empress, got 
out on 1 8th May, 1874, the first issue of a handsome twelve- 
page paper, the " Lantern," with four pages of superb illus- 
trations in colour, price sixpence. Here is a sample from it : 
"It is reported that M. Rochefort is in England. It is 
further affirmed that it is his intention to proceed to Belgium 
or Switzerland to fight certain journalists who have not had 
the courtesy to suppress the truth about him, though he never 
told it of them. We presume, however, this rumour is false ; 
M. Rochefort must retain enough of the knowledge he 
acquired when he was esteemed a gentleman to be aware 
that a meeting between him and a journalist is now impossible. 
M. Rochefort, we believe, is already suffering from an unhealed 
wound. It is his mouth." Rochefort's French friends had 
expended thousands of pounds in a plant for their own journal 
in London ; but, thus forestalled, after some futile attempts 
at relief and redress, Rochefort took himself off to Belgium : 
and the Empress Eugenie ceased to be a London newspaper 
owner. 

In January, 19 13, Mr John Plummer wrote to me on 
this subject as under: "The statement is new to 
me ; certainly it was never mentioned by Clement W. 
Scott, Aglen A. Dowty, John Hopkins and other 
old confreres. The extract is somewhat in Mortimer's 
style, but it is highly improbable that the Empress 
had anything to do with it. She had nothing to fear 
from any adverse action on the part of Rochefort, 
and, from what I was told, held his threats and those 
of his friends in contempt. The story of the expendi- 
ture of ' thousands of pounds ' on a printing plant for 
a Rochefort paper is simply ridiculous." 



338 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

The presumed part taken by the Empress Eugenie 
in the London " Lantern " was noticed in some 
detail by Mr Clement Shorter in the " Sphere " 
(Literary Letter) as recently as February 5, 19 16. 
In the " Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce," an 
American series of books, there are " Bits of 
Autobiography," upon which Mr Shorter thus 
comments : 

" It would seem that James Mortimer, who after- 
wards founded and edited the [weekly] ' Figaro/ 
was in the habit of visiting the Empress Eugenie at 
Chislehurst. He found the Empress worried at 
the threat of M. Henri Rochefort that he would 
start his paper, the ' Lanterne,' in London. Mortimer 
suggested the foundation and registering of such 
a paper here, and the ' Lantern ' duly appeared 
in May, 1874. It was a twelve-page paper, with 
four pages of superb illustrations in six colours. 
It was sold at sixpence. Bierce tells us that he 
wrote the whole paper, and gives extracts from 
his articles. A second issue appeared in July, and 
then the journal stopped. It had done its work. 
Rochefort found that his title was impossible of 
use in this country. This picture of an Empress as 
newspaper proprietor has its romantic side." 

Mr Shorter further tells us that Ambrose Bierce was 
" once on ' Fun,' " a London weekly " comic " 
paper which I well remember, although I cannot 
recall the London " Lantern," while even John 
Plummer's mind is a blank concerning it. I think 
my readers will join with me in thanking Mr Shorter 
for his piquant revelation of a very curious episode 
in the Empress's English life. 




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EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 339 

I have mentioned John Plummer and his close 
association with the London daily, not the later 
weekly, " Figaro." John Stuart Mill knew him, 
and, writing from Blackheath Park, Kent, on March 
8, 1867, sent him a very cordial letter of intro- 
duction to the late M. Gustave d'Eichthal, an 
eminent French publicist. Mr Mills, writing in 
perfect French, said Plummer had gone to Paris as 
the representative of several associations of workmen, 
in the hope of getting for them facilities for 
inspecting the Exhibition which drew all the world to 
the French capital in that " great year " of the 
Second Empire. * " Mr Plummer," wrote J. S. Mill, 
" is a remarkable man. He was long an artisan 
in a small provincial town. He began writing 
under the stimulus of indignation against certain 
practices of the Trades Unions. He is now an 
author and a journalist, and his writings on all 
questions of interest to working-men are remarkable 
for their good sense, enlightened philanthropy, and 
even purity of style." John Plummer's career is 
the more notable inasmuch as he suffered, and suffers, 
from the disability of deafness. Of Mortimer 
Mr Geo. R. Sims (" My Life ") tells us : " To 
the last he had a habit of pulling out a gold watch 
on the slightest provocation and letting you see 
by the inscription that it had been presented to 
him by the Empress of the French. Peace to his 
memory ! " t 

In the " Times " (April 20, 19 14) Mr Gardner 
Engleheart, 28 Curzon Street, narrated this anecdote 

* Fully described in my previous volumes. 
■5- " Evening News," February ii, 1916. 



340 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

of the Emperor when, as Prince Louis Napoleon, 
he was residing in London : 

In your impression of the 14th inst. you published an 
amusing- and interesting letter from the Right Hon. Sir 
Spencer Ponsonby Fane * of his experiences on April 10, 1848, 
the day of the so-called Chartist Riot. As my experience of 
that day involves a curious episode in the life of a historic 
personage, you may possibly consider it worth recording. 
I was not, like my friend Sir Spencer, armed with a Tower 
musket, nor did I fight behind a barricade of heavy volumes 
of the "Times" newspaper impervious to fire and sword. 
I spent the day in the open, and, armed with a policeman's 
staff, was ordered to parade Pall Mall in company with three 
others, only one of whom was ever known to fame — and 
he was very much known : the late Emperor of the French, 
then Prince Louis Napoleon. He was rather taciturn, but 
very pleasant; he had discarded his staff for a light gold- 
headed cane, but was very efficient in the only deed of valour 
we accomplished on that day, the capture of a drunken old 
woman, whom he duly handed over to the authorities. I often 
wondered whether our Imperial comrade ever in the course of 
his eventful life recalled his early contribution to the cause 
of order in aiding to protect London clubland in return for 
the protection he was himself then receiving in this country. 
There cannot be many now alive who, like Sir Spencer and 
myself, served our country on that memorable day. 

Napoleon IIL, both as Prince-President and as 
Emperor, had in this country no more whole-hearted, 
enthusiastic an admirer than Captain Gronow, whose 
two volumes of " memories " f contain many pages 
devoted to the Empress Eugenie's consort, but very 

* Died, aged ninety-two, 1915. 

t "The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow.. 

Anecdotes of the Camp, Court, Clubs and Society : 

1810 — 1860." Two vols., illustrated. London: John C. 
Nimmo. 1889. 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 341 

little about the Imperial lady. " It is not," says this 
very sprightly chronicler, " because the Empress is 
the wife of Napoleon III. that she sets the fashion 
even to those who do not go to court and who turn 
up their noses at her entourage." [These were the 
Royalist ladies of " the Faubourg," and perhaps a 
few others of anti-imperialistic opinions.] " She 
is considerably older, and certainly not handsomer, 
than was the Duchesse de Nemours when she left 
France to die in exile, but she has the chic that the 
Orleans Princesses did not possess, and the quietest 
dowager, before she ventures to adopt a coiffure, as 
well as the gayest lady of the demi-monde, will cast 
a look to see what the Empress wears. Strange 
to say, the supreme good taste and elegance which 
reign in her Majesty's toilettes were by no means 
conspicuous in her younger days, for as Mile de 
Montijo she was voted beautiful and charming, but 
very ill dressed." 

There are still among us in London two ladies — 
there may possibly be more, but I doubt it — ^who can 
recall the Empress in the great years before 1870 : one 
is Mrs Vaughan; the other, Mrs Ronalds. The 
first-named lady has enjoyed the intimate friendship 
of the nonagenarian widow of Napoleon III. for at 
least fifty years, as had her sister, the late Mme de 
Arcos, to whom reference is made in another chapter. 
Mrs Vaughan's daughter has been often the Em- 
press's guest at Farnborough Hill, has accompanied 
her Majesty on some of her tours, and was one of 
the few English ladies present at M. Pietri's funeral. 
Miss Vaughan, when at Farnborough, spends much 
of her time in reading to her hostess, whose eyesight, 
however, is still exceptionally good. Princess 



342 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Napoleon and the Comtesse de Mora are also among 
the Empress's favourite " readers " in 191 6. 

M. Augustin Filon's volume, " Le Prince Imperial," 
is got up in luxurious style, and costs twenty francs. 
I have heard that the Abbe Misset suggested that it 
should be produced in a much more sumptuous form, 
but that the Empress objected on the ground of expense. 
It was the Abbe who rendered the Empress invaluable 
service by investigating what was known as " The 
Romance of the Prince Imperial." This her Majesty, 
in a letter addressed to the late Monsignor Goddard, 
and now in my possession, denounced as " a lying 
story," and the Abbe Misset proved it to be so. 

Count Paul Vasili, in his work, " France from 
Behind the Veil " (Cassell, 19 14), sketches the 
Empress on the day of her flight from the Tuileries 
(Sunday, September 4, 1870): 

When I first saw Eugenie, her whole appearance was fairy- 
like ; in spite of her forty years, she eclipsed all other women. 
Her slight, graceful figure was almost girlish in its suppleness, 
and she is the only woman I have ever seen who, though in 
middle life, did not prompt one to utter the usual remark when 
lovely members of the fair sex have attained her age, " How 
beautiful she must have been when she was young." 

With the exception of the Empress Marie Feodorovna of 
Russia, I have never seen anyone bow like Eugenie, with 
that sweeping movement of her whole body and head, that 
seemed to be addressed to each person present in particular, 
and to all in general. On that particular evening she was a 
splendid vision in evening dress. Her white shoulders shone 
above the low bodice of her gown, and many jewels adorned 
her beautiful person. 

I was one of the persons who visited the Tuileries on the 
evening of that memorable 4th of September which saw the 
fall of Napoleon HI.'s dynasty. No one knew at that moment 
what had happened to the Empress, nor where she had fled, 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 343 

and rumours were going about in some quarters that she 
had tried to join the Emperor, and in others that she had directed 
her steps towards Metz with the intention of seeking a 
refuge with the army of Bazaine, and establishing there the 
seat of government. 

When I visited the palace I found that no one there believed 
that she had gone away for ever ; indeed — and this is a detail 
that I believe has never been recorded elsewhere — I found 
one of her maids preparing her bed as usual ! 

It was evident that the flight had been a hurried one. In 
the private rooms letters never meant to be seen by a stranger's 
eye were scattered about ; a gold locket with the portrait of 
a lovely woman, the Duchesse d'Albe ; another one with that 
of a baby in long robes, the first picture of the Prince Imperial ; 
one small golden crucifix ; a note just begun, and addressed 
no one knows now to whom, but of which the first words ran 
thus : " Dans la terrible position oii je me trouve, je ne " 

The writing stopped there ; evidently she who had started 
it had been interrupted by the bearer of some evil message, 
and there it lay forgotten, in the midst of the tragedy which 
had put an end to so many things and to so many hopes. 



Lady Bulwer Lytton had a deathless grudge against 
Queen Victoria, and in her " Unpublished Letters 
to A. E. Chalon, R.A.," issued by Mr Eveleigh Nash 
in 19 1 4, she says : " A friend of mine writes me word 
that Prince Albert looked quite delighted at sitting 
beside that beautiful Empress (Eugenie) instead of 
his own dumpy, idiotic-looking Frau. I wrote her 
back word no doubt he was delighted at this change 
for his Sovereign." 

In a letter to the " Times," " T. H. W." wrote 
(1914) : "In your interesting article on the Empress 
Eugenie you remark that : ' From the windows of 
an hotel in Paris she has looked out upon the site of 
the Tuileries.' A few years ago I happened to 
be standing at those very windows with the hotel 



344 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

manager, and he described the Empress's visit some 
time previously. Her lady-in-waiting, he said, had 
remonstrated, saying that she wondered that her 
Majesty could bear to look upon that dreadful scene. 
' Do not be surprised,' replied the Empress, ' the 
woman who lived there is dead. I am a different 
person.' " 

The Paris papers reported in July, 19 14, shortly 
before the Empress's return to England on the i8th 
of that month, when the first faint indications of the 
coining European war became apparent, that the 
Imperial lady, walking in the Tuileries Gardens with 
a friend, plucked a Malmaison rose. One of the 
caretakers, observing this enormity, hastened to the 
side of the venerable lady, and, not recognising 
her, said : " It is forbidden to pick flowers here, 
madame. I shall have to report you. What is your 
name? " " Eugenie " was her faltering reply. 
" That's no name. I must have your surname." 
Looking at the fair culprit fixedly, he apparently 
remembered seeing her portrait in the papers, and said, 
in a more amiable tone : " Well, never mind this 
time, madame, but don't do it again." 

One of the very few Englishmen who saw Napoleon 
III. on his way from Sedan to Wilhelmshohe was 
the late Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who records * 
that at Spa railway station on the 2nd of September, 
1870, the day after the defeat of the French at 
Sedan, he read in the " Independance Beige " a 
telegram from Bouillon stating that there had been a 
great battle and that the French were victorious ! 
Bouillon, a small Belgian town, was for the moment, 
owing to its proximity to Sedan, " almost the focus 

*"Some Notes of the Past." London: Murray. 1893. 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 345 

of European interest." Here Sir Henry met with 
the long Imperial cortege en route to Verviers, 
where the Emperor took train for Wilhelmshohe 
on Sunday, September 4, the day on which his 
consort fled from the Tuileries. As the Emperor 
passed through Bouillon it was seen that he was 
escorted to the frontier by a detachment of those 
Prussian hussars who wear a black uniform and have 
on their busbies a death's head and crossbones. 

First in the procession came the Emperor's own 
carriage, a travelling " berlin " ; then an open car- 
riage followed by two or three other vehicles, 
" something like prison vans," containing members 
of the august captive's suite, and succeeded by 
fourgons, marked " Maison Militaire de I'Empereur," 
and a number of horses ridden by Imperial liveried 
servants in scarlet waistcoats and glazed hats. 
The horses, magnificent animals, over sixteen hands, 
were relays for the carriages. Following these were 
packs, saddle horses and " chargers beyond price " : 
in all nearly one hundred ! 

Arrived at Bouillon the Emperor entered his hotel 
and presently showed himself at a window. " There 
was an enormous crowd, well dressed and enthusiastic. 
Superior French officers walked about, among 
them Prince Achille Murat, in the dandy dress of 
the chasseurs d'Afrique. I heard the crowd shout 
' Vive I'Empereur! ' ' Dinner? ' ' Impossible! 
The Emperor is about to sit down with twenty, and 
afterwards there is a dinner for fifteen.' The 
Emperor's menu is known to the crowd — an omelette 
and boeuf pique." From Bouillon his Majesty wrote 
to the Empress. Continuing his journey to Ricogne 
Sir Henry, who was, I remember, very Bonapartist 



346 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

in feeling, came upon a detachment of Belgian 
artillery, by whom the Emperor was received. 
" Napoleon stopped at a house in the village for 
breakfast, and some of the servants came to the 
cafe where I was breakfasting. They were more 
communicative than any I had met." 

" At 2 P.M. the Emperor, in his carriage, drawn by 
four horses, came to the door of the Verviers railway 
station. A general officer was with him, who we 
were told was General Castelnau. The Emperor 
seemed well. His features showed little emotion. 
He leaned heavily on the arm of the servant who helped 
him out of the carriage, but walked well. He wore 
a red kepi embroidered in gold, and there were 
decorations on his uniform. A dispatch was given 
him, and, after speaking to some of the French 
Legation and the Belgian authorities, he sat down 
and wrote. He then walked on the platform of the 
station, and on returning to the waiting-room 
smoked a cigarette and read the ' Independance 
Beige.' A special train came for him, and he went 
off with his suite, with General Chazal (the Belgian 
Commander-in-Chief), General von Bezen (a Prussian 
officer), and Prince von Lynar (also a Prussian)." 

On the loth of July, 1914, the Empress visited 
the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which she had not 
seen for forty-four years. Accompanied by one of 
her nieces, Comte Joseph Primoli, and Comte 
Walewsky, her Majesty (said the " Echo de Paris ") 
presented herself at the gate of what was formerly 
one of the Imperial residences and gave her name 
to the brigadier, who went to inform the curator 
of the building of the august visit. M. d'Esparbes, 
who is not for nothing a delicate poet, realised to the 





w 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 347 

full the tragic pathos of the circumstance. Silent 
and bareheaded he ascended the great horseshoe 
staircase with the Imperial figure in deep mourning 
at his side. Not a word was said on either side till 
the apartments of Louis XIII. were reached. Then 
the Empress suddenly broke the memory-laden 
silence. " Ah ! there is my box ! " she said, 
touching lovingly an ivory coffer. " But the legend 
of the Palace," said M. d'Esparbes gently, " has 
it that this coffer belonged to Anne of Austria." 
" True, true," replied the Empress; " but at my 
marriage the Emperor presented it to me with a . 
gift of gloves and fans." 

The Empress remarked that the splendid "Diana" 
of Benvenuto was no longer in its place. " What 
has become of it? " she asked, and M. d'Esparbes 
replied, " Alas ! it is now in the Louvre." " I 
think they might restore it to its earlier setting," 
said the Empress gently. Looking out through 
an open window on the gardens in the full glories of 
the summer, " How beautiful they are ! " she 
exclaimed, as if to herself. At another window, 
commanding the Etang des Carpes, she stopped, 
and, after a moment's silence, said, " My gondola is 
gone." The Empress lingered long in the Chinese 
museum — her own work — tracing the history of 
different curios. " The Emperor," she said, " used 
to make me every year a present of Chinese curios. 
My presents to him were suits of armour." Then 
she left the chateau for the gardens, where she sat 
down for a few minutes looking out over the Etang 
des Carpes. " Not that I am tired," she said, " but 
to have leisure to recollect." Here she was joined 
by Mme Gillois, an old personal friend of the 



348 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Empress, and one of the reigning beauties of the 
Court of Fontainebleau. They talked for a few 
minutes of old times. As Mme Gillois withdrew, 
the Empress turned to M. d'Esparbes and said, 
" Dear Madame Gillois ! She brings back the past. 
She was then slim and graceful, with a waist that two 
hands could span." A few children and women, 
who had heard of the Imperial visit, gathered at the 
palace gates. As the Empress passed she caressed 
with her hand the forehead of a boy, and, for the 
first time during this pilgrimage of memory, her eyes 
filled. Then, alert, showing no signs of fatigue, 
though for three hours she had walked among the 
shadows of the past, she got into her car. 

Mr Filson Young wrote in the " Pall Mall 
Gazette " (July 14, 19 14): 

Nothing- could be more ghostly and pathetic than the visit 
of the aged Empress Eugenie to the palace of Fontainebleau 
a few days ago. 

The very spirits that haunt its chambers might have been 
startled by the apparition of one who went there in the full 
splendour of her youth and beauty as the bride of Napoleon III., 
and who thus crept back, an ancient, shrunken, exiled 
woman, to take a solemn farewell of scenes from which every 
actor but she has long departed to the shades. What a 
world of melancholy there was in the little dialogue that 
has been reported: "That is my casket." "Madame, it 
is known as the casket of Anne of Austria." "That may 
be, but it was given to me, filled with gloves and fans, by 
the Emperor for my marriag-e. " Lost youth, lost beauty, 
lost glory, a lost empire cry to us in that little sentence. 
One can only hope that if there be a compensation for an 
old age that has outlived every contemporary thing it lies in 
a power to bridge the gap of years, and still to hear and see 
what to all other ears and eyes has fallen silent and invisible; 
and that the Empress may have heard not the voice of the 
curator, but the music and murmurs of the ball-room, and 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 349 

seen not the empty chambers of a museum, but the Hghts and 
the flowers, and the Hving and fleeting- beauty and pageantry, 
that were Fontainebleau in the days when the casket was 
filled with gloves and fans. 

The London daily papers took exceptional notice 
of the Imperial lady's excursion, and the " Daily 
Telegraph " and the " Times " devoted leading 
articles to it. In the "Telegraph" we read (July 14, 
1914): 

Of what is she thinking, this lone, bereaved, fate-driven 
figure, as she enters the Chateau of Fontainebleau, ascends 
the great horseshoe staircase, and visits room after room 
consecrated in her mind by wonderful associations? She has 
a keen and vivid memory, it is clear. She recognises 
the ivory box which originally belonged to Anne of Austria, 
and which was presented to her by the Emperor on her 
marriage. She notices the absence of the " Diana " of 
Benvenuto, now removed to the Louvre. She can tell the 
curator how her husband used to give her every year Chinese 
curios, and how her gifts to him consisted of suits of armour. 
And looking out on the Carp Pond she can mark with a sigh 
of regret that her gondola no longer floats on the water. 
So might the wraith of Marie Antoinette revisit the glimpses 
of the moon at Trianon and St Cloud, and note how many 
of her treasures had disappeared ; or Henrietta Maria pass 
like a ghost along Whitehall and observe the many changes 
which have now transformed the cruel scene of King Charles's 
martyrdom. Eugenie de Montijo had her splendid hour, like 
so many of the tragic heroines of history ; and if there is a 
sense of tears in human things she will retain all men's pity 
and sympathy in the august loneliness of her doom. All, 
all are gone, the old familiar faces — the courtiers who did 
obeisance to her, the friends who flattered her in the giddy 
eminence of her power, the senators and statesmen who 
listened with respect to her imperious counsels, the Emperor 
himself who was guided — not wisely, but too well — by her 
judgment. It is pleasant to recall in the latter days of her 
misery a confident prediction which Napoleon uttered more 



350 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

than half a century ago : " Endowed with all the qualities 
of the soul, she will be the ornament of the Throne, and in 
the time of danger she will become one of its most courageous 
supports." Did not the prophecy come true? She was, 
as all men will testify, the very heart and soul of the Second 
Empire, and when the Imperial fortunes fell in black ruin 
her enemies were forced to declare that she, almost alone, 
faced the menacing tide of revolution with superb calmness 
and courage. The Empress Eugdnie had a magnificent career, 
however we choose to regard it, and whatever criticism 
we venture to pass on its meaning and value. She was 
once the Egeria of an Emperor, who, in Bismarck's phrase, 
indubitably occupied the Chair of Europe. Now she remains 
Niobe, all tears — a woman, who, like Constance, might say : 
"Here I and Sorrow sit. This is my throne; bid kings 
come worship it." If she loves to solace her loneliness with 
imperishable memories, either at Fontainebleau or on the 
site of the ruined Tuileries, what man who has read the 
wonderful story of her rise and fall will be so churlish as to 
say her nay? 

The " Times," of the same date, said felicitously : 

It is now forty-three years since foreign invasion and 
domestic revolt pulled her down from what had been the most 
brilliant throne in Europe, amid what defections and what 
treasons none knows but herself. In all that time, under 
untold provocations, she has uttered no word of recrimination 
or of reproof. She has published none, from the store of 
documents she is known to possess, for the refutation of the 
calumnies by which she and hers have been assailed, or for 
the confusion of the traducers who rose by Imperial favour, 
only to secure their position by turning against the Empire. 
The Empress has suffered as few women have suffered. She 
has buried her sufferings in her own heart with magnanimous 
silence. 

They are ever there, those memories of the past. To that 
all who are privileged to know her bear witness. They 
betray themselves at times suddenly, unwittingly, by a 
gesture, by a look, by a chance word. But her firm will and 
her deep sense of resignation have given her so sure a 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 351 

command over them that she has no fear lest any material 
associations should revive them too acutely. She does not 
shrink from the recollection of the greatness and of the 
happiness that are gone. She has attained a tranquillity which 
nothing can shake, and she can look back upon the past 
without anguish as without bitterness. At Fontainebleau she 
was shown a casket which her husband gave her on her 
marriage, filled with gloves and fans. At St Cloud she 
once noticed how a young tree had thrust its way through 
a slab of marble amongst the ruins. She drew near to look 
at it, and she recognised in the marble the chimney-piece 
of one of the salons where all that was brilliant and illustrious 
in France had gathered about her a few years before. There 
are noble hearts which would break under that strain, but 
the heart is nobler yet that can endure it for the sake of the 
sacred past. At Fontainebleau, in all its early summer glories, 
her recollections may have been less cruel than elsewhere. 
There, indeed, the King of Prussia was her guest three years 
before he provoked the war which drove her into exile. But 
there, where the legends and the traditions of so many kings 
crowd thickly, and where the memory of the great Emj>eror 
dominates them all, she passed some of the gayest and the 
brightest hours of her reign. As she gazed on those once 
familiar halls where grave statesmen and brilliant soldiers were 
proud to do her homage, in the flower of her beauty and of 
her greatness, they may well have " brought back with them 
the memory of glad days, while many loved shades rose 
around." That, too, is happiness — to the minds attuned to 
it, as is hers. 

The Paris correspondent of the " Evening 
Standard " (July 30, 19 14), writing less than a 
fortnight after the Empress's departure from France 
for Farnborough, noted a propos of the Malmaison : 

The curator of that charming little chateau and park that 
are sacred to the memory of the Napoleonic dynasty has had 
a serious shock. The Empress Eugenie is building there 
in the pleasant garden a monument to her son, the Prince 
Imperial, and the work was advancing rapidly, the roof 



352 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

having been put in place a few days ago. Now the authorities 
have discovered that thieves have carried most of it off 
bodily. Being in lead, it weighed two thousand pounds. 
It was not difficult to trace, however, and the thieves and 
the purchaser of the stolen lead are all safely lodged in 
Versailles prison. The mausoleum of the young Prince is at 
the moment practically the only memorial at Malmaison of 
the passing of the Third Napoleon. The chateau is more 
especially becoming a centre for relics and souvenirs of Jose- 
phine, whose tomb is in the neighbouring church of Rueil, 
and whose last residence it was. The chateau is unpre- 
tending, and far from vast : the park has been greatly reduced 
from its original dimensions, but retains much of its charm, 
with its smooth lawns, its tiny trickling stream and its few 
but graceful trees. In the past month the motor car of the 
aged Empress has been often at the Malmaison gate, where 
she is superintending the decoration of the mausoleum. 

An ingenious writer interested the readers of one 
of the Paris papers by picturing the Prince Imperial 
as he might have been had he lived until now. 
In March, 191 6, he would have been sixty. " His 
hair has become grey. In the middle of his forehead 
only a deep furrow would have betrayed the anguish 
of a soul which has suffered. Since the Terrible 
Year the Prince has reflected much and worked 
much. On the death of his father he became the 
worthy heir of the Napoleons. He has an ardent 
taste for military history. He knows by heart all the 
achievements of the great generals of ancient and 
modern times. He is a fine rider and an excellent 
shot. In Scotland he has shown his prowess with 
the gun in the grouse battues. The English think 
highly of him as a sportsman. He has travelled 
a great deal, visited the Indies five times and has 
twice made the tour of the world. During his travels 
he has often met his companion in exile, the Due 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 353 

d'Orleans. They spoke de bonne amitie, but chiefly 
of sport. In London, where he resides, often going 
to see his mother at Farnborough Hill, he is greatly 
appreciated and beloved. The British soul, so 
antagonistic to Napoleon the Great, is sympathetic 
to one whom many still call the ' Little Prince.' 
But the son of Napoleon III. is melancholy, and 
compares his destiny to that of his cousin, the Due de 
Reichstadt [son of Napoleon I.]. The analogies 
between the two are indeed striking. Both left 
France, when quite young, for a foreign country. 
The Due de Reichstadt had at least the consolation 
of dying young. To-night the Prince is particularly 
sad. To kill time he spends the evening at Green- 
wich with some friends; they dine in the open air, 
and the Petit Prince, while smoking a cigar, looks up 
at the stars, and regrets that he did not die in 
Zululand. To rouse him from his melancholy his 
friends urge him to forget the sad past and the 
uncertainty of the present, and to think only of the 
future. Never, they tell him, have his chances of 
ascending the throne been so great. France is ready 
to welcome Napoleon IV. The Petit Prince bends 
his head. He still remembers Ossuld's sonnet, and is 
tired of ' always hoping.' " 

The late Sir Charles Dilke, whose avowed 
republicanism in the late sixties and the early seventies 
provoked the ridicule of all but a very few English- 
men, wrote : " 1870 was a year which will never 
be forgotten by those of my time — the year which 
saw the downfall of the most magnificent imposture 
of any age, the Second Empire." At Lille, early in 
1 87 1, when the Franco- Prussian war was still raging, 
Dilke noted : " I heard Gambetta make his great 



354 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

speech. It was the finest oratorical display to which 
I ever listened, though I have heard Castelar [the 
celebrated Spanish republican statesman], Bright, 
Gladstone, Gathorne Hardy and Father Felix often 
at their very best." Some three years later, as 
we learnt only at the end of December, 19 15, 
we find Gambetta writing, in a letter to M. Ranc, 
an ardent anti-Bonapartist : " I discern in the Prince 
of Wales the makings of a great statesman. With 
all his young authority he opposes the enforcement 
of measures which might be prejudicial to Russia." 
These words were reproduced by all the London 
papers on the day following their appearance in 
the " Matin," and must have been read with surprise 
by the Empress Eugenie, who perhaps remembered 
that speech made in the Chamber by Gambetta 
in which he spoke of " the clerical fanaticism which 
animated the Spanish woman who had been made 
the Empress of the French." 

Long before M. Pietri's death the Empress's right- 
hand man was the Comte de Mora, whose wife 
was born a De Lesseps, a celebrated family with 
which the Empress, through her mother, is connected. 
The Count is not only a capable man of affairs, 
but of considerable scientific knowledge, so that 
the Empress confided to him the work of installing 
the electric light, which is generated in the grounds 
of the residence. 

In this work, and in all that I have written about 
Napoleon III., the Empress, and the Prince Imperial, 
the object has been to group all facts and records of 
events gathered since 1870. The passages on the 
next three pages are from my diaries, aided by my 
recollection of the events. 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 355 

Chislehurst — Farnborough, January 9, 1888. 

To-day I witnessed another act of the Imperial 
tragedy — the removal of the bodies of Napoleon 
III. and the Prince Imperial from Chislehurst to 
Farnborough. The Emperor's coffin had been placed 
in St Mary's Church in January, 1873 — the Prince's 
on July 12, 1879. I was present at both funerals, and 
described them in the " Morning Post." 

At eight o'clock this morning Monsignor Goddard 
said a low Mass for the repose of the soul of 
the Emperor, for to-day was the anniversary of 
his death fifteen years ago. Only two or three 
persons attended the service — members of the con- 
gregation. The little church was closed until nine 
o'clock, when preparations began for the transference 
of the remains to the artillery waggons (from 
Woolwich) which were to convey them to the 
railway station, and from thence in a special train to 
the Imperial Mausoleum in the church at Farn- 
borough erected by the Empress. The red granite 
sarcophagus which Queen Victoria had presented 
to the Empress had been taken to Farnborough, 
and the remains of the Emperor, contained in three 
coffins, placed alongside those of the Prince. 
While the preparations for the removal of the 
coffins were being made by Mr Garstin (of the firm 
of W. Garstin & Sons, Welbeck Street, London), 
M. Pietri arrived, accompanied by the Marquis de 
Bassano, whose father, the venerable Duke, was 
unable -to be present. 

Earlier in the day Monsignor Goddard, M. Pietri 
and the Marquis had drawn up a proces verbal 
setting forth the facts of the reception of the 



356 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

bodies at St Mary's and their removal for trans- 
ference to Farnborough. The Emperor's outer 
coffin, of well-seasoned oak, had not suffered from 
damp, as the inner ones had, but its velvet covering 
had partially rotted and its brass " furniture " was 
seen to be covered with verdigris. The breast- 
plate was uncorroded, but the brass cross at its 
foot had turned green. The Prince's coffin had 
a covering of violet velvet, which was unspotted, 
as were the breastplate and the fittings. A black 
pall now covered the Emperor's coffin. M. Pietri 
laid a wreath, sent by the Empress, on each coffin : 
that for the Emperor was of rosebuds and violets — 
that for the Prince was all white. At the last 
moment a lady sent two bouquets of violetsi, one 
for each coffin. 

At 10.30 a battery of the Royal Horse Artillery 
arrived from Woolwich — two guns and forty men, 
under Lieutenant Wing. Preceding the coffins was 
Monsignor Goddard, in white surplice and cotta, 
reading the Burial Service. Each coffin was carried 
by ten artillerymen, and each was covered by a 
tricoloured flag, on which were placed the flowers 
and (on the Prince's) the riband and order of the 
Legion d'Honneur. The Marquis de Bassano and 
M. Pietri followed, together with a few French 
gentlemen, three sisters from the Holy Trinity, 
Bromley, and artillerymen. The coffins were placed 
on the gun carriages, and two photographers took 
views from an adjacent field, much to the indignation ^ 
of the priest, but doubtless to the satisfaction of 
the public generally, who by this time had gathered 
in their thousands, despite the fog and the muddy 
roads. Monsignor Goddard, the Marquis de 





s < 



A 



w 






EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 357 

Bassano and M. Pietri drove to the station, access to 
which was barred. The English and French 
reporters (including M. Johnson, of the " Figaro," 
and M. Leon Jolivard, of the " Gaulois ") were 
admitted, and journeyed to Farnborough by the 
" special." 

The coffins were placed in a baggage waggon, 
which the undertakers had arranged and decorated. 
Its walls were draped in black, spangled with silver 
stars, and displayed the Imperial crown and mono- 
gram. At one end was a large ivory crucifix, with 
a background of black velvet, in which was 
woven a Latin cross in white silk. The waggon 
was canopied with black drapery. Candles in silver 
sconces were lighted, and the waggon became a 
chapelle ardente, with the Monsignor as its only 
living occupant. In the Prince's coffin (the priest 
told me) was the scapulaire found on him when 
his mangled body was discovered; this was now 
in a cardboard box. 

Arrived at Farnborough, the coffins were taken 
to St Michael's in the presence of a crowd of 
distinguished personages and placed in the Imperial 
Mausoleum. Monsignor Goddard's guardianship of 
the remains had ended. 

I should have written more fully of this pathetic 
spectacle had space permitted. I have been able, 
however, to give the main facts in outline, and will 
now proceed with my chronicle, which future his- 
torians should find serviceable. 

The Empress's pedigree is given in a very 
complete form in another chapter. Her English 
friends will now learn with agreeable surprise that 
there is a tie of kinship between the Imperial 



358 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

lady's family and that of one of the most gifted and 
popular of English contemporary writers, " Dagonet," 
of that widely read journal the " Referee." In , 
" My Life : Sixty Years' Recollections of Bohemian 
London," "^ Mr Geo. R. Sims says : 

My great-grandfather, Robert Sims, was a sturdy, handsome 
and well-to-do Berkshire yeoman. To the Berkshire town 
into which he rode regularly on market days there came a 
Spanish grandee, Count Jose de Montijo, who was of the 
family which gave us the Empress Eugenie. He had left 
Spain as a political refugee, and his daughter, the Countess 
Elizabeth de Montijo, had come with him. 

My great-grandfather fell in love with the beautiful 
Spanish girl and married her. She was quite a young girl 
when she became his wife, but she " lived happily ever 
afterwards " and died a dear old English lady at the age of 
eighty-five. 

It was yet another surprise to find this curiously 
interesting item concerning the Empress in the 
" Daily Citizen " (March 17, 1913), which received it 
from its Panama correspondent : 

In connection with the opening of the New Hotel Washing- 
ton, on the beach of Colon — one of the outward signs 
of the new prosperity which is rapidly coming to the Panama 
Canal region — an appropriate site will be found at last for 
the famous bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, in 
the attitude of protecting an Indian maiden who is crouching 
by his side. This statue has had a strange career, and 
almost as many adventures and as much neglect as the 
great navigator himself. It was cast at Turin for the 
Empress Eugenie, while she was still in power at the Palace 
of Versailles. By her it was presented to the Republic of 
Colombia in 1868, to be erected at Colon, but the recipients 
appreciated the gift so little that for two years it was left 

*" Evening News," January 17, 1916. 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 359 

unpacked on the wharf. An occasion of jolUfication came 
along", and the statue was temporarily set up, only, however, 
to be forgotten again for another nine years. Then it was 
sent to Cristobal, whence it is now to be brought, forty-five 
years behind time, to its orig-inal destination — Colon. 

Aided by the late M. Pietri I exposed in the 
" Observer," in 19 10, the forgery of the so-called 
" Memoirs " of the Empress, and subsequently 
gave a fuller account of the fraud in my first volume 
on the Imperial Family. I recently found that 
the matter had been referred to by the London 
correspondent of the " New York American " 
(February 6, 19 10), whose comments will doubtless 
amuse as well as interest those of my new readers 
who may perhaps never have heard of the literary 
atrocity perpetrated in Paris six years ago. The 
correspondent of Mr Hearst's well-known journal 
headed his narrative with these piquant lines : 
" Eugenie threatens to sue Publisher.- — Ex-Empress 
of France declares Someone has stolen Notes of 
Autobiography," and continued : 

The London High Courts are likely to be occupied in the 
near future with a most interesting case. A short time ago 
paragraphs began to appear in the literary papers announcing 
that the eighty-year-old ex-Empress Eugenie had completed 
an autobiography which would appear as soon as the question 
of a publisher had been settled. 

An autobiography from the ex-Empress should be one of 
the most interesting volumes ever penned by woman, for 
she was a young and fascinating woman when France was 
at its g-ayest ; she saw the tragedy of the Third Revolution 
from its inception to its end, and she knows more of France's 
part in the disastrous war with Germany than any living 
soul. There are some historians who do not hesitate to call 
it " Eugenie's War," 



36o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

A small army of publishers hastened to Farnborough, where 
the ex-Queen lives in semi-regal state, in the endeavour to 
obtain the publicity rights, only to be told that Eugdnie had 
written no memoirs beyond a few notes which do not extend 
beyond the four sheets of note-paper. 

In a few days the announcement of a forthcoming book 
was repeated, and although the publisher is at present a 
mystery, it is said authoritatively that the volume will appear 
in the spring. 

Now Eugenie in a passion of indignation declares that 
someone has had felonious access to her notes, and that 
as the book is unauthorised it must necessarily be full of 
inaccuracies. She declares that as soon as the publisher comes 
into the open she will apply for an injunction to restrain 
publication, so there is the promise of interesting happenings 
in the very near future. 

I may explain that the Empress and M. Pietri did 
not take any proceedings against the concocters of 
the " Memoirs," being quite satisfied with the 
Press exposure of the fraud. The intention of those 
responsible for the printing of the " bogus " work 
was to issue it only " if anything happened " to 
the Imperial lady. Nothing has " happened " since 
19 lo, and we may all hope that nothing will 
" happen " to her for many years to come. I do 
not for a moment think that the tens of thousands 
of copies of the book which, as M. Pietri knew, were 
printed, presumably in or about 1909, perhaps even 
before, have been destroyed. I assume that they 
remain " somewhere in France," probably in Paris. 

The Hayward's Heath correspondent of the 
" Evening News " recorded on January 9, 19 13 
(the anniversary of the Emperor Napoleon's death at 
Chislehurst in 1873) : 

A link with the ill-fated Prince Imperial has been broken 
by the death at Ditchling, Sussex, of ex-Farrier-Sergeant 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 361 

Muddle. The old soldier, who enlisted in the i6th Lancers 
in 1864, took part in the famous charge at the Battle of 
Ulundi, and was one of those who helped to carry the 
Prince's body into camp when it was found after a difficult 
search. Muddle had a service record of twenty-eight years, 
twenty-three of which he spent abroad. One of his feet had 
been amputated as a result of an accident while he was in 
the army, and he had recently lost the use of the other. 



One of the most devoted friends of the Imperial 
Family during the Chislehurst days was the late 
Lord Sydney^ best remembered as Lord Chamberlain 
for many years in Queen Victoria's reign. He 
took to Camden Place the sad news of the death of 
the Prince Imperial, and later he was given by 
the Empress, in memory of her beloved son, the 
three-quarter portrait of Mme le Brun, painted 
by the artist herself in 1782. At the sale in June, 
19 1 5, of what w^as known as the " Sydney collection " 
of art valuables, this picture was purchased for 
^^6930 by Mr George A. Kessler, the New York 
champagne merchant, one of the survivors of the 
Lusitania, which, on May 7, 191 5, was destroyed, 
as is now well known, with the Kaiser's full know- 
ledge ; yet, after diplomatic " negotiations " between 
the Governments of the United States and Germany 
lasting until February, 19 16, the former could not 
induce the latter to admit that its monstrous crime was 
an " illegal " one ! 

The late Mrs Crawford, whose sprightly " Notes 
from Paris " had enlivened " Truth " from its 
first number until the end of 191 5, frequently had 
something original and piquant to say of the 
Napoleonic regime and of the Empress. A 



362 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

collection of her articles on these subjects would 
fill a volume. The " Notes '^ of this gifted woman 
were always characterised by a knowledge peculiar to 
herself and gave her readers food for reflection. 
As a chroniqueuse she was unrivalled. In " Truth " 
of December 17, 1913, she wrote : 

De Lesseps, following- the example of his Imperial cousin-in- 
law, issued his Suez Canal scrip direct to the public. The 
Empress took the scheme up with ardour. Count Walewski, 
at a critical period of the undertaking, thought well to 
yield to Palmerston's opposition. One forenoon, as he 
awaited an audience of the Emperor, the Empress flung 
into the room, and, looking him furiously in his eyes, cried 
out : "I hear you want to humble us to Palmerston in the 
affairs of the Suez Canal. I tell you what — if you leave 
my cousin (Lesseps) in the lurch, by God I will stab you in 
the heart." These words were repeated to me twenty years 
later by De Lesseps himself. This masterful attitude of 
the Empress throws light on the Court intrigues of July, 
1870, which brought about the disastrous war with Germany. 
Walewski was cowed. On seeing the Emperor he toned 
down the remarks he had prepared. . . . The issue of Suez 
shares broug-ht all the wage-earning folk of Paris to the 
company's offices. 

The Manchester " Sunday Chronicle," like many 
other leading provincial papers, furnishes its wide 
circle of readers with much matter relating to the 
Empress. This paragraph appeared on September 
29, 1912 : 

The very name of the Empress Eugenie always seems to 
bring before the mind a story of romance and tragedy. 
The older generation still remembers her in her youthful 
beauty, when her extravagance of dress and her rather flighty 
ways made her the talk of all the Courts ; and then came 
blow after blow on this frail woman — the fall of the Empire, 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 363 

exile, and last, and heaviest, the death of the Prince Imperial 
in the Zulu War. She seems so much a figure out of a past 
time that we wonder when we hear of her as still taking part 
in things mundane. 

But that something remains of the spirit of the dainty 
beauty of Empire days is seen in the story which is being 
told in royalist circles in Paris. The Empress Eugenie on 
her last visit asked an old friend to bring to her salon some 
of her most chic young friends dressed in their very latest 
furbelows. When they paraded in front of her she expressed 
herself as enchanted with the grace and elegance of the 
fashions of to-day, and said that if the dressmakers of her 
time had been able to produce such works of art what a 
brilliant France she would have made of it. But suddenly 
came another thought to the ex-Queen, and she asked what 
might be the cost of these triumphs. When told the price, 
she was horrified, and said she had never paid more than 
twenty-four pounds for a frock, and that such extravagance 
would have been impossible for her. 

The story goes (wrote the Paris correspondent 
of the Manchester " Sunday Chronicle " in 19 13) 
that " a French insurance company, learning that 
the Empress Eugenie was in bad health [which was 
not the case], wrote to her suggesting that she 
should sink her fortune in an annuity, which was 
to increase in a certain ratio with each year of her 
life. The Empress consented, and the insurance 
company rejoiced at the bargain it had struck, 
because the Empress was believed to be at death's 
door. In 191 2 the annuity, which had started at 
something under ^13,000, had reached close on 
^75,000." 

Whenever possible, whether in France or England, 
the Empress attends the anniversary service for the 
Prince Imperial which is celebrated on the ist of 
June. In 19 14 her Majesty was travelling in Italy, 



364 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

visiting, among other places, Venice and Baveno, 
and later Madrid. The Paris service was not on 
the 1st, but on the 2nd of June, at, as usual, 
the Church of Saint Augustin. Mass was said by 
the Abbe Landes, and the absolution given by the 
venerable Abbe Misset, formerly the young Prince's 
almoner. Prince Murat represented the Bona- 
partist Pretender, who, two or three months later, was 
driven, with his wife and two children (the little 
boy was then only four months old), from Brussels 
by the invading Huns and took refuge with the 
Empress at Farnborough, where they were still 
staying at the time of writing (February, 1916). 
Besides Prince Murat there were present at Saint 
Augustin's Prince Michel Murat and the Duchesse 
de Mouchy (nee Princesse Anna Murat) and many 
others; while ranged in the choir of the church 
were delegations of the Plebiscitary Committees 
of the Seine (Prince Napoleon's adherents), with 
their flags — so tolerant is the Republic, our cherished 
Ally. M. Franceschini Pietri (whose death is 
recorded in another chapter) was also among the 
worshippers on this occasion. At the end of the 
service the organist, M. Gigout, played the beautiful 
melody named by the composer after the Prince 
Imperial. 

In mid- January, 19 16, one or other of her 
" readers " — Mme d'Attainville, the Comtesse Mora, 
or (perhaps) Miss Vaughan — doubtless told the 
Empress that there had been a very destructive 
fire at Bergen, the second largest town in Norway. 
Of Bergen her Majesty has amusing memories, 
for that port was the scene of her reception, on 
board her yacht Thistle, of the " Bloody " Kaiser. 




* Q 




EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 365 

The date was Sunday, July 27, 1907. The event is 
fully narrated, in the words of one of the Empress's 
guests at the time, in my Kaiser-Book, * and I 
am therefore precluded from repeating it here. 
I may be allowed, however, to mention that one of 
the Empress's party at the time was the only 
surviving son of Prince and Princess Christian (the 
latter being a devoted friend of her Imperial 
Majesty for forty-five years) — the same Prince 
Albert who, as a Prussian Hussar, has sworn fealty 
to William the Infamous and has been exhorting 
the Hunnish troops under his command to make 
mincemeat of as many of our " contemptible little 
army " as possible. With the Empress on this 
occasion was, inter alia, the Princesse de la Moskowa 
(nee Princesse Eugenie Bonaparte), to whom, 
during the Kaiser's visit to the Thistle, this Prince 
of the English Blood Royal (King George's cousin) 
had the audacity to say : " I am not a German. 
I was born at Windsor, and my mother is 
English ! " 

Once, in a moment of pique, the Empress, 
accompanied by only one lady, came to England and 
passed several weeks in the winter of i860, touring 
through Scotland. Learning that she had unex- 
pectedly arrived in London, Queen Victoria invited 
her to Windsor Castle. The event is thus noted 
by the Duke of Cambridge in his diary t •' 

*"The Public and Private Life of Kaiser William II." 
London : Eveleig-h Nash. 1915. 

t " George, Duke of Cambridge. A Memoir of his Private 

Life." Edited by Edgar Sheppard, C.V.O., D.D., Sub-Dean 

of his Majesty's Chapels Royal. Two vols. Longmans, 
Green & Co. 1906. 



366 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

Windsor, December 4, i860. 

Attended the Queen at her reception of the Empress 
Eugenie, who came for luncheon and on a visit, soon after 
one o'clock. She looked changed since last I saw her, but 
not ill, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but certainly 
much depressed. It was rather a painful meeting, when one 
remembers how gay and hopeful the last visit was. At two 
we lunched as usual, and at three she returned by special 
train to London. Albert [the Prince Consort] met her and 
took her back to the station. The Queen with all of us 
received her at the entrance. The Emperor's name was only 
mentioned by her once. She had with her Madame de Monte- 
bello and de Sauley, Monsieur de la Grange and Colonel 
Fund. 

Nine years before the outbreak of the World War 
French and German veterans united in celebrating 
the anniversaries of the blood-month, August, 
1870. In that month in 1905 this extraordinary- 
scene, unparalleled in Franco-German history, was 
witnessed in two or three places, one being in 
the neighbourhood of Germanised Metz; and it 
marked a rapprochement which came only after 
the passing of nearly four decades. Among the 
celebrants, these wearing the Military Medal, those 
the Iron Cross, some had fought with the vanquished 
Emperor Napoleon III. and others with the 
victorious King. The addresses which were made 
on both sides were characterised by the heartiest 
good feeling and (as I believed at the time) 
transparent sincerity, and an obvious wish to " bury 
the hatchet." The pathetic moment came with the 
interlacing of the French and German flags, and 
handshaking all round. Among those who took 
part in this great historical scene were some, of both 
nationalities, whose memories went back to that 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 367 

2nd of August when Frossard's guns on the heights 
overlooking Saarbriicken suddenly opened fire on 
a small Prussian force, the Emperor and the boy- 
Prince looking on as the wearers of the spiked 
helmets withdrew, in fairly good order, but beaten, 
because vastly outnumbered. Others recalled Wis- 
semburg (two days later), which the Crown Prince 
Frederic attacked, when the Prussians captured 
the Geissburg and, with the Bavarians, took the 
town. 

On that day the French lost the first of their 
generals — Abel Douay, who was fatally shot. After 
another two days' interval came Worth, a defeat 
which spread dismay through France, for MacMahon's 
army was pulverised and routed. It was a great 
victory, but purchased, if the historians are correct, 
with the loss of 489 German officers and 10,153 
men. The records give the number of French 
killed at 6000; prisoners, 200 officers and 9000 
soldiers. Some of the survivors in these harmonious 
celebrations must also have recalled Mars-la-Tour, 
when 20,000 French and German dead and wounded 
lay in a line extending over six miles ! Nor could 
they have forgotten the bloody fighting at Spicheren 
(Saarbriicken), also on the 6th, when Frossard, a 
man of capacity, but a miscalculator, was routed, 
and when a single Prussian division lost 1800 killed 
and wounded in the storming of the steep heights of 
Spicheren and Forbach. On the i6th, 17th and 
1 8th came the holocaust around Gorze, when 
the Prussians lost in killed and wounded nearly 
50,000 and the French more. The fighting on 
those three never-to-be-forgotten days I did not 
witness, but I was at Remilly, in the region of Metz, 



368 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

when the trains bearing the German wounded passed 
through day and night. As the month of blood 
drew to a close there came the battle of Beaumont, 
where the Saxons, 60,000 of them, surprised De 
Failly's army corps as they were cleaning their 
rifles and cooking ! For the French, August ended 
badly, with Beaumont; September began worse, with 
Sedan. 

This letter, written by the Empress to Abd-el- 
Kader, first saw the light in 19 13, in M. Jean 
Marsol's work, " Djehal," a psychological study 
(histoire Turque) : 

Chislehurst, January 17, 1871. 
Emir, — 

In the midst of the misfortunes which have struck 
me, the All-Powerful -has accorded me consolation for so many 
bitternesses. 

If many have deserted me, there are some who retain 
memories of me. The token of sympathy which I have 
received from you has deeply touched me. God has struck 
me by the hands of men. I bless Him, and ask Him to give 
me the strength to submit to His will. 

I thank you also on behalf of the Emperor and my son. 
Our greatest happiness will be the glory of France and 
the success of her arms. Believe me, etc., 

Eugenie. 

The subjoined letter is exceptionally interesting 
as for, I think, the first time, the Empress refers to 
Prince Napoleon's adherents (Plebiscitaires), con- 
cerning whom she had previously, and has since, 
been silent, fearing lest she might unintentionally 
let fall a word or two displeasing to the Government 
of the Republic, with which she has remained on 
the best terms since she received permission a 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 369 

quarter of a century ago to have a permanent 
residence in France. In 1913 M. Charles Faure- 
Biguet sent the Empress a copy of his work (written 
in the interests of the present Bonapartist Pre- 
tender's Party), " Paroles Plebiscitaires," with a 
preface from the eloquent pen of M. Frederic 
Masson, one of the most distinguished members 
of the Academic Fran^aise. The late M Pietri 
wrote to the author as follows : — 



Farnborough Hill, Farnborough, Hants, 
December 12, 1913. 
Sir, — 

I have received your letter, and, in accordance with 
your wish, have communicated its contents to her Majesty 
the Empress, and called her attention to the marked pages 
in the book which you have sent. 

Her Majesty has read with interest your " Paroles 
Plebiscitaires " and directs me to thank you for having" 
brought to light so many things and souvenirs which are 
dear to her and for putting them under the aegis of the 
little Prince, whose memory you treasure so devotedly. 

Accept, sir, the expression of my most distinguished 
sentiments. Franceschini Pietri. 

The piquant story of the bust of the Empress, 
which forms the frontispiece to this volume, appearing 
for the first time, so far as I know, in any English 
or French book, may be briefly told. The Emperor 
had promised the eminent sculptor, Carpeaux, in 
the early sixties, that the Empress should give 
him a sitting for a bust. Her Majesty did not 
favour the idea — flatly declined, in fact, to pose. 
The Emperor, however, invited the artist to spend a 
week at Fontainebleau. The Empress remained 
obdurate, and the Emperor politely reminded him 



370 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

that the time had come for his departure. " You 
will have to leave us to-morrow morning, my dear 
Carpeaux," said his Majesty regretfully. " Not 
until I have done what I came for," exclaimed 
Carpeaux, who hinted that the Imperial lady had 
insulted him by refusing to sit. Napoleon III. 
said he would make one more attempt to bring his 
consort to reason, and he did so. This time he 
was successful : the Empress consented to pose 
for two hours. Carpeaux was a quick worker, and 
soon completed the clay model, which was then 
baked and finished. He took it to the Empress, 
anxious for her opinion. She glanced carelessly 
at it, merely remarking : " It's certainly -pretty ! " 
Almost beside himself with rage, the great man 
took the bust back to his studio and flung it on the 
floor, with the result that it was cracked and 
the corners were chipped off. Long afterwards 
the bust was fished out of a dust-heap by one of the 
artist's students, who kept it until the master's 
death. In 19 13 all the remaining works of 
Carpeaux were sold in Paris — one hundred and 
sixteen pieces of sculpture, including the famous 
bust of the Empress which now adorns this volume. 

Comte de Maugny, in his " Cinquante ans de 
Souvenirs," * relates this anecdote, which, he says, 
is worth its weight in gold : " In 1872 one of 
my friends, a diplomatist, who had filled a high 
official position at the Court of Napoleon III., 
had an audience of King Victor Emmanuel at 
Turin. The King was eager to hear the latest 
news of the Emperor and Empress. ' Poor people,' 
he said, ' I pity them with all my heart. I am 
* Paris: Plon-Nouritt. 1914- 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 371 

the more grieved at their misfortunes because I 
can never forget all that the Emperor did for me.' 
Then, after a pause, and with a smile, he added : 
' Besides, what has happened to them will happen 
to all of us one day or other. For myself I laugh 
at it, but it will not be amusing to the others.' " 

The Queen of Bulgaria is a member of the family 
of the writer of this letter, which I received from 
Trebschen, in the province of Brandenburg : 

Let me thank you very much indeed for sending me your 
book about the Court of Napoleon III. It is a most pathetic 
theme, certainly, and one of the most curious and instructive 
in history. Every detail, therefore, adding to the knowledge 
of that time seems full of interest. I feel sure that your 
other book on the same subject [the present volume] will have 
an equal success as its predecessors. With renewed thanks, 
I remain, sincerely yours, Marie Alexandrine, Princess 
Heinrich VII. Reuss, j.L., Princess of Saxe-Weimae, 
Duchess of Saxe. 

In a letter to me from her French home, the 
Baronne Ed. de George des Villates (who is English- 
born) pays this glowing tribute to " the great and 
noble virtues " of the Empress : 

I have been deeply interested in the perusal of your work 
concerning the Empress Eugenie and that sad German-Franco 
war. I was at school in Paris when war was declared, and 
remained in France the whole time it continued ; not in Paris, 
it is true, but in Richelieu, where the lady charged with my 
education had taken me with other young ladies, thinking 
the war would be of short duration. When it was over, and 
it was considered safe, we all returned to Paris ; but only a 
week or so afterwards the terrible civil war broke out. This 
time I got sent back to England, and it was with very deep 
sorrow I left the dear French people, in whose grief I had 
been destined to participate all that sad long time of the war. 



Z^. EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

You will understand now how vividly the reading of your 
book has renewed all the sorrows of that painful period. 
Written, as it is, too, by a gentleman bearing my own maiden 
name, has made it doubly interesting to me. You have cleared 
up much that has been said against the sweet, beautiful 
Empress Eugenie, and brought to light all her great and 
noble virtues. Poor dear Empress ! I shall see her in that 
land where we all hope to meet, and there she will perhaps 
learn how closely I have followed her in all her sorrows, and 
how deeply I have loved her. Soon after my schooldays I 
married a Frenchman, and here I have been ever since in the 
home my beloved husband brought me to. 

Early in 1851 the " Inverness Courier " reported: 
" A fine golden eagle, taken in Strathglas, is at 
present at Inverness, with a view to its being sent to 
Paris as a gift to the Emperor of France. A number 
of rabbits have been sent as food for the eagle during 
its journey." 

" Punch's " comment on this may amuse the 
Empress even in 19 16. " It is very charming to 
know that Scotland has so gracefully renewed her 
ancient alliance with the kingdom of France. Can 
she not still further strengthen it? Napoleon wants 
a wife. As Scotland has sent him an eagle, can she 
not provide him with a dove — a ringdove ? " 

From "Punch," October 25, 1856: "Sporting 
in France. — Hunting and shooting are now the sports 
at Compiegne. The Empress has already distin- 
guished herself as a shot. Having a year or two ago 
brought down an Imperial eagle by shooting her 
eyes at him, she has added to the achievement by 
bagging nine pheasants. We think beauty should 
leave such matters to the beast. We like to think of 
Venus with her doves, but confess we should not care 
so much for the goddess were she known to wring 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY ^'j^ 

the necks of the birds and put them, feet upwards, 
under a crust." 

The same journal, September lo, 1868 : " The 
' Independance Beige ' * the other day published 
a statement that the Prince Imperial had lately said : 
' When I am Emperor I shall not allow anyone to 
be without religion.' An official denial of this was 
published, concluding : ' These words were never 
made use of by the Prince Imperial, who, at his 
present age [twelve] would not think of interfering 
with political matters.' " This was headed : " Second 
Thoughts are Best." 

In mid-October, 19 15, I received a letter from 
my friend, M. Gerard Harry, the well-known author 
and contributor to the " Temps " and other leading 
French journals, that certain Paris papers had 
published statements telegraphed from London 
reporting the Empress to be in an alarming condition. 
He wished me to " interview" Prince Napoleon 
and to send all the facts relating to the Imperial 
lady to him (M. Harry) in Paris. In view of the 
serious news from London, French writers were 
hastily preparing biographies of her Majesty, and 
my assistance in this direction was sought by my 
friend. I allayed M. Harry's apprehensions and 
sent an authoritative denial of the canard to a 
London paper. I remembered that the Brussels 
papers had been similarly deluded in November, 19 13, 
and that one of those journals had prepared a 
special number which was intended to be issued 
at a moment's notice directly the news of the 
predicted calamity was received in the Belgian 
capital. 

* Now (1915-1916) published in London. 



374 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

In the previous January (19 13) the Empress was 
suffering from a cold and cough, and so was 
prevented from attending the annual service for 
the Emperor on the 9th of that month; she was 
" represented " at St Michael's Abbey Church on 
that occasion by Comte Mora and the late 
M. Pietri. For some days she was confined to 
the house and her doctor was in daily attendance. 
Never was her marvellous vitality more evidenced 
*than during her enforced seclusion. She was in 
the best spirits, and after hearing Mass in her 
Oratory and noticing that the sun was shining and 
that the birds were singing, she said : " I still cough 
a little, but what a temptation to go out ! " Three 
months later she kept her eighty-seventh birthday. 

The servants (the Empress never uses the word 
" domestics ") at Farnborough Hill are of various 
nationalities. At the outbreak of the war three 
of them — two footmen and the second cook — hastened 
to join their comrades in the French army, and 
up to March, 19 16, had not been replaced. The 
first cook and her Majesty's two maids are French. 
There are two footmen — one a Dane, the other 
a Swiss. The silver articles in use are in charge of 
a Belgian youth. The other " serviteurs " (this 
is her Majesty's word) are all English. Besides 
those enumerated, several persons are employed 
by the Empress solely to look after the wounded and 
invalided officers whom she has received in her 
sanatorium. They are fortunate in being so 
luxuriously housed and in having an Empress as 
hostess. 

In February, 19 16, news reached the Benedictines 
at Farnborough of the fate of one of their number 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 375 

who had joined the French army a year previously. 
Frere Savignac was a choir postulant who had 
received the habit at Farnborough on February 2, 
19 1 5, and on the i8th of that month he was killed 
in action, at the head of his men. His body was not 
discovered until November. He was a lieutenant 
in the 59th Infantry Regiment, and during his 
fortnight's service had been wounded when entraining 
his men and was accorded the War Cross, with 
special mention in orders. On the anniversary of 
his death (February 18, 19 16), there was a solemn 
Requiem Mass and absolution at St Michael's Abbey. 
The Empress Eugenie had hoped to assist at the 
service, but the bad weather prevented her from 
leaving the house, and she was represented by 
Mme d'Attainville. All the circumstances of this 
young man's death contributed to make this Requiem 
Mass impressive and sadly picturesque. At each 
corner of the catafalque was a French flag — the 
colours of Lieutenant Savignac. Around were 
grouped the French Consul at Southampton, M. Bar- 
thelemy; the parish priests of Farnborough and 
Woking, the Lady Superior of " Hillside " Convent 
(now removed to Sycamore House owing to recent 
Governmental requirements) and several of the nuns, 
Mme d'Attainville, wounded or invalided soldiers, 
local residents and the members of the Benedictine 
community. 

In March the Farnborough Benedictines were 
agreeably surprised by the publication in the " Sunday 
Herald " of portraits of several members of their 
community, including the Rev. Pere Gougaud, who 
in March, 19 16, was still a prisoner of the Huns. 
This talented young Father was depicted in his 



376 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 

sergeant's uniform and also in the " habit " of 
the Order. The Sunday sermons throughout Lent 
(1916) at the French church in Leicester Square 
were preached to large congregations by another 
member of the same community, the Rev. Pere 
Bauzin. 

At the time this work was printed (March, 19 16) 
the Empress had not appointed a new secretary. 
Possibly (but this is unofficial) Comte Mora will 
replace the deeply-regretted M. Pietri. 

The Empress, my younger readers may be 
reminded, was born at Granada, Spain, on May 5, 
1826, and was married at Notre Dame on January 
30, 1853, two months after her consort had been 
proclaimed Emperor (December 2, 1852). The 
" civil " marriage took place at the Tuileries the 
evening before the religious ceremony. There was 
no coronation. The Emperor was born in Paris 
on April 20, 1808, reigned eighteen years (1852-1870), 
and died at Camden Place, Chislehurst, on January 
9, 1873, aged sixty-four years and nine months. 
The Prince Imperial, their only child, was born 
at the Tuileries on March 16, 1856, three years 
after his parents' marriage. He died in Zululand on 
June I, 1879, aged twenty-three years and ten weeks. 
The Empress arrived in England, landing at Ryde, 
on September 8, 1870, and resided at Chislehurst 
until the autumn of 1880, when she removed to 
Farnborough Hill, near Aldershot. She will be 
ninety on May 5, 19 16. The Empress's genealogy 
is detailed in another chapter, and is as accurate 
as, with the aid of others, I have found it possible to 
make it. 

The Empress passes most of her time in a 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY -^^^ 

spacious sitting-room on the ground floor. She 
sleeps on the second floor, above which is her 
Oratory, with its roof of pitch pine. There is 
space in this little chapel for about thirty persons, 
but as a rule the worshippers do not exceed ten or 
twelve. When she is in residence here, as she 
has been since July, 19 14, the eve of the war, 
low Mass is celebrated every Sunday morning at 
ten o'clock by one of the Benedictine Peres from 
St Michael's Abbey, who is attended by a " server " 
(a Frere). There is no music at such a service 
of the Catholic Church, nor is there any instrument 
in the Oratory. The little bell which is rung by 
the " server " at the supreme moment has engraved 
upon it " Chapelle des Tuileries " — a relic brought 
to England by her Majesty when she fled from 
the Palace on Sunday, September 4, 1870, three 
days after the battle of Sedan, the disaster which 
led to the overthrow of the Imperial Dynasty. 

At St Michael's Church there are two confessional 
boxes — at the Oratory there is one, which is 
portable. The Empress sits, or kneels at her 
prie-Dieu, between Prince and Princess Napoleon. 
Above the holy-water stoup is a card with the 
printed inscription, in French : " Pray for the repose 
of the soul of his late Majesty King Edward VII., 
the Peacemaker," with the date of his death (May 
6, 19 10). On the wall, at the entrance, is a large 
framed picture showing a Red Cross ambulance 
about to receive the body of the Prince Imperial 
and convey it to Pietermaritzburg for official 
identification. The Stations of the Cross on the 
walls are of plaster (those at St Michael's are of 
painted copper). In a small sacristy are the priest's 



378 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SCTN 

vestments. The Empress confesses twice a year, 
on Christmas Day and on the Festival of the 
Assumption, August 15, which during the Empire 
was the fete of the year. 

The Empress attended Mass in her Oratory on 
Christmas Day, 19 15, and on the 3rd of January, 
19 1 6, she motored to St Michael's to assist at 
the monthly service which she instituted (in 19 14) 
for all soldiers killed in the war. A week later 
(Monday, January 10 — the 9th, the date of the 
Emperor's death, falling on a Sunday) she was present 
at St Michael's at the annual service for Napoleon 
III. There were two Masses — a " High " one 
in the church and a " Low " one in the crypt, 
the Imperial Mausoleum. The Empress attended 
the latter, at which the celebrant was the Rev. 
Pere Bauzin. With her were Prince and Princess 
Napoleon, Comte Mora, M. and Mme d'Attainville, 
and a few others, including three of the officers 
(two on crutches) who at the time were being tended 
in the Empress's sanatorium at her residence. These 
invalids were taken to and fro in her Majesty's 
own car. The celebrant of Mass in the church 
above was the Rev. Pere Eudine; the deacon, Pere 
Stewart; the sub-deacon, Pere Cluzel; and the 
master of ceremonies, Pere Gilbert. After the 
High Mass all these, and all the monks, descended 
to the crypt, where the absolution was given by 
Pere Eudine. This scene in the crypt which we 
witnessed was tinged with pathos : the Empress 
kneeling at the Emperor's tomb of red granite, the 
gift of Queen Victoria; Prince and Princess 
Napoleon by her side; the Benedictines in their 
habits, the sparse congregation in black, the crucifer 



EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 379 

with the large cross and the small crucifix at its 
summit, the thurifers, the priest-celebrants and their 
attendants. My gaze is fixed on the bowed figure 
at Caesar's tomb, widowed these three and forty 
years and verging on ninety. But memory takes 
me back to that gth of January at Camden Place, 
when these words came from the lips of Franceschini 
Pietri : " The Emperor is dead. There is nothing 
more to say." And Pietri himself now sleeps under 
the turf outside the crypt. I had seen the Sovereign 
and his son borne into the little church at Chisle- 
hurst; seen the Secretary laid to rest in the monks' 
cemetery, where there are no tombstones, only 
graves, long grass and laurels. In the crypt She 
casts more than one glance at the Arcosolium, her own 
chosen place of sepulture. With smiles and bows 
she departs — 

No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret, 

But like a statue solid-set 
And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before. 



INDEX 



Abd-el-Kader, 368 
Adelaide, Queen of Austria, 329 
Agar, Mle, 254, 255, 256 
Ajalbert, Jean, 116 
Albe, Due d', 19, 106, 114 
Albe, Duchesse d', 19, 21 
Alexander II., Emperor, 261, 268 
Alexandra, Queen, 18, 20, 29, 108, 

158, 159, 269 
Alfonso XII. of Spain, 102, 109 
Alfonso XIII., King, 19, 102, 104, 

269, 273 
Amadeus, King, 104 
Ambes, Baron d', 311, 312, 313, 314 
Angely, Comte Davilliers Regnaud 

de Saint Jean d', 267 
Antoinette, Marie, 25, 130 
Aoste, Dowager Duchess d', 327, 

329, 330. 332 
Arcos, Christine Vaughan de, 29, 

33, 34, 41, 114 
Arcos, Don Domingo de, 29 
Attainville, Madame d', 375, 378 
Aubert, Francis, 76 
Augusta, Queen, 177 
Austria, Emperor of, 27, 274 
Avignon, Archbishop of, 75 



B 



Balliere, M., 146 

Barthelemy, M., 375 

Bartolini, M., 67 

Bassano, Due de, 40, 220, 222, 259, 

322, 332 
Bassano, Marquis de, 335 
Bastien, M., 146 
Bastille, the, 23 
Battenberg, Prince Maurice, 157, 

160 
Battenberg, Princess Henry, 29, 

31. 33. 108. 157. 158, 159, 318 
Baynes, Captain, iii 
Bazaine, Marshal, 25, 96, 97, 164, 

169, 182, 186, 306, 307, 308, 309, 

310 



Bazaine-Hayter, General, 25 
Beaconsfield, Lord, 323 
Beauharnais, Marquis Frangois de, 

313 
Benedetti, Count, 80, 81, 83, 98 
Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 253, 

254. 255, 256, 257, 258 
Bernstorff, Count, 239 
Berri, Due de, 56 
Bierce, Ambrose, 338 
Bismarck, 61, 80, 81, 83, 89, 90, 

162, 164, 168, 169, 195, 227, 229, 

238, 239, 279 
Blanc, Fran9ois, 328 
Blowitz, de, 253 
Bocher, Charles, 263 
Bonaparte, Cardinal, 63, 66 

Clovis, 302 

Jerome, 314 

Prince Charles, 220, 260, 261 

Prince Louis Lucien, 63, 220, 

299. 302, 303 

Prince Roland, 327, 330 

Princess Christine, 260 

Bonnal, 231 

Borthwick, Algernon, 161 

Bourbaki, General, 163 

Boyen, General von, 173, 174, 175, 

176 
Boyer, General, 163, 164, 169 
Brassey, Lady, 253 
Broghe, Due de, 260, 330 
Brown, J. (Prince Imperial's 

groom), 225 
Burgoyne, Sir John, 17, 321 



Cabrol, Dom F., 139 
Cadorna, General, 329 
Calmette, M. Gaston, 326 
Cambacerds, Comte de, 63 
Cambridge, Duke of, 49, 197, 212, 

214, 216, 257, 365 
Campile, Madame Gavini de, 

267 
Canrobert, Marshal, 182, 273, 307, 

308, 309, 310 



380 



INDEX 



381 



Carey, Lientenant, 214 
Carlyle, Thomas, 23 
Carpeaux, M., 369 
Cassagnac, Granier de, 82, 236 
Castelnau, General, 175, 177, 178, 

182, 346 
Castle-Vecchio, Francois Louise, 

312 
Chambord, Comte de, 22 
Chambrier, James de, 231, 239 
Chapelle, Comte de la, 271 
Charette, General de, 270 
Charles II., King, 109 
Chelmsford, Lord, 207, 212, 214 
Christian, Princess, 108, 159 
Christine, Infante, 109 
Claretie, Jules, 144, 184 
Clagny, Gauthier de, 331 
Clary, Comte, 273 

Comtesse, 272 

Clementine, Princess, 20 
Clotilde, Princess of Savoy, 329 
Coeli, Duchess de Medina, 319 
Conegliano, Due de, 44, 270 

Duchesse de, 27, 272 

Connaught, Duke of, 27 
Conneau, Dr, 222 
Conti, M., 42, 264 
Cornu, Madame, 264, 265 
Corvisart, Doctor, 221, 311, 312 
Cousin, Victor, 198 
Cowley, Lady, 195 
Crawford, Mrs, 361 



D 



Darboy, Monsignor, 237 

Darimon, Alfred, 232 

Daudet ,Lucien Alphonse, 11 3- 134 

David, Jerome, 82, 236 

DavilUers, Count, 175, 220 

Delafosse, M. Jules, 276 

Deleage, M., 59, 223, 224 

Dilke, Sir Charles, 353 

Dion, Marquis de, 286 

Doche, Madame, 241, 242, 243, 244 

Douay, General Abel, 367 

Drumont, Edouard, 100 

Ducrot, General, 263 

Duff, Grant, 198 

Duperre, Admiral, 220, 270 

Duvernois, Clement, 236 



Edgar, Professor, 150, 151 
Edinburgh, Duke of, 27 



Edward VII., King, 19, 27, 28, 56, 
108, 157-159, 221, 254, 257, 268, 

324, 377 
Emmanuel, King Victor, 370 
Engleheart, Gardner, 339 
Escurial, the, 108 
Espabes, M. d', 346 
Espeuilles, General de Viel d', 271 
Evans, Thomas W., 217, 220, 221, 

229, 321, 335, 336 



Falli^res, Armand, 8 

Fane, Rt. Hon. Sir Spencer 

Ponsonby, 340 
Fardet, Antoine, 272 
Fauconniere, Dugue de la, 236 
Faure-Biguet, Charles, 369 
Favre, Jules, 79, 84 
Febvre, Frederic, 257, 258, 324 
Fete Nationale, 22 
Feuillant, Xavier, 269 
Filon, Augustin, 45, 58 
Fitzjames, Dona Sol Stuart, 107 
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, " Life 

of Lord Granville," 193, 194, 197 
Flahault, Comte de, 311 
Fleury, Comte, 49, 272 
Fleury, General, 217, 221, 254 
Fleury, Vicomtesse Adrien, 272 
Forbes, Archibald, 191, 219, 224, 

227 
Fortoul, Madame, 270 
French, Lord, 97 
Frere, Sir Bartle, 212 
Frossard, General, 97, 98, 367 



Gabrielli, Princess, 63 

GalHfiEet, General the Marquis, 269 

Gambetta, 79, 354 

Gannal, .Doctor, 224 

GenUs, Madame de Waubert de, 272 

George V., King, 18, 20, 28, 108, 

319 

Gillois, Madame, 347 

Gladstone, 157, 197, 198, 253, 304 

Glenesk, Lord, 161, 267 

Goddard, Monsignor, 45, 46, 49, 62, 
63, 64, 65, 76, III, 112, 137, 192, 
219, 220, 225, 267, 302, 355 

Goiran, General, 186 

Gorce, Pierre de la, 231, 232 

Got, M., 324 



382 



INDEX 



Gougaud, Rev. Pere, 375 
Gramont, Due de, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 

85, 88, 89, 232, 233, 236 
Granville, Lord, 157, 193, 194, 195, 

236, 253 
Graviere, Admiral Jurien de la, 262 
Grevy, President, 27 
Gronow, Captain, 340 
Grousset, Paschal, 146 
Guerard, Madame, 254 



H 



Harry, Gerard, 373 

Hepp, Commandant, 175, 182 

Herisson, Comte d', 59, 215, 218, 

219, 220, 221, 222 
Hesse, Andre, 186 
Hohenlohe, Prince Clovis Von, 98, 

238, 239 
Home, Daniel Dunglass, 194 
Hortense, Queen, 42, 43, 116, 263, 

264, 311. 312, 313 
Houssaye, Henry, 99 
Hugo, Victor, 271 
Huillier, Madam Henrietta L', 135- 

141 



Isabella, Queen of Spain, 143, 144 

J 

Jarras, 309 

Jerrold, Blanchard, 228, 229, 230, 

265 
Joffre, General, 97 
Josephine, Empress, 124, 130, 313, 

314 
Jourde, M., 146 

K 

KiRKPATRicK family, the, 151, 152, 

153. 154. 155. 156 
Knollys, Lord, 158 
KnoUys, Miss Charlotte, 158 



Laferri^re, Comte de, 254 

Lafi&tte, M., 189, 191 

Lambert, Baron Tristan, 24, 45, 57 

Lano, M. Pierre de, 218, 219 

Launay, De, 23 

Law, Captain David, 146 



Leboeuf, Marshal, 85, 96, 97, 182, 

233, 290, 306, 309 
Leopold, Prince, 80, 82, 84, 230, 236 
Lesseps, Captain Ismail de, 273 

Count Ferdinand de, 273 

Lintorn-Simmons, Sir John, 227, 

228 
Lipton, Sir Thomas, 40, 106 
Lockroy, Edouard, 271 
Lomas, J. (Prince Imperial's 

groom), 221,223, 225 
Longman, Thomas, 228 
Loubet, Emile, 28 
Louis XVI., King, 24 
Louis, King of Holland, 311, 312, 

313 
Lynar, Prince, 174, 175 
Lyons, Lord, 230, 236 
Lytton, Lady Bulwer, 343 



M 



MacMahon, Marshal, 23, 26, 60, 78, 

97, 182, 237, 367 
Malmesbury, Lord, 240 
Manning, Cardinal, 54 
Mary Christine, Queen of Spain, 105 

Princess, 18 

Queen, 18, 319 

Massa, Marquis de, 270 
Masson, Frederic, 312, 313, 369 
Mathilde, Princesse, 184, 270 
Maugny, Comte de, 370 
Maupas, de, 42 
Maximilian, King, 268 
Mercedes, Queen, 109 
Mermillod, Monsignor, 75 
Metternich, Princesse Pauline de, 

27 
Mill, John Stuart, 339 
Miramon, Marquis de, 273 
Misset, Abbe, 45, 342, 364 
Mocquard, 42, 43, 143, 270 
Moltke, 26, 61, 97, 168, 186 
Montebello, Comte Jean Lannes de, 

273 
Montgomery, De (family), 244 
Montijo, Count Jose de, 358 

Comtesse de, 102 

Francisca de, 106 

Monts, General Count von, 46, 47, 

172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 180, 183, 

184, 335 
Moore, ALf. S., 155 
Mora, Comte de, 354, 374, 376, 378 

Comtesse de, 342 

Morley, Lord, 197, 198 



INDEX 



383 



Morny, Due de, 43, 143, 311 
Moskowa, General Prince de la, 175 

Princesse de la, 365 

Mouchy, Due de, 221, 268 

Duehesse de, 21, 27, 113, 196, 

316, 364 
Prinee, 46, 178, 182-220, 260, 

286, 364. 
Murat, Prince Michel, 364 
Princesse Anna (see Mouchy, 

Duehesse de) 



N 



Napoleon I., 124, 136, 190, 266, 
276, 282, 291, 299, 303, 311 

III., 27, 42, 43, 46, 47, 78, 79, 

80, 82, III, 125, 135, 139, 143. 
144, 172, 174, 175, 182, 183, 184, 
185, 186, 190, 193, 194, 195. 197. 
198, 200, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 
234, 235, 23S, 255, 256, 261, 265, 
276, 280, 282, 285, 287, 296, 306, 
311, 312, 313, 316, 322, 340, 345, 
355, 370, 378 

Prince Louis, 241, 242, 244, 

327- 329 

Victor, 18, 20, 39, 91, 112, 275, 

281, 283, 284, 319, 327, 328, 329, 

332, 333. 377-378 
Princess, 18, 20, 21, 40, 319, 

342, 377- 378 
Neville, Lady William, 107 
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 179 
Niel, Marshal, 97 
Noailles, Mile Sabine de, 268 
Normand, Jacques, 257 
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 199 



O 



Ollivier, M. Emile, 25, 61, 77, 78, 
80, 81, 82, 98, 186, 231, 236, 270, 
272 
Orange, Prince of, 254 
Orleans, Due d', 24, 55, 329 
Omano, G. Cuneo d', 277 
Oscar, King of Sweden, 268 



Pain, Ollivier, 146 

Palikao, General de, 26, 61, 78, 79, 

80 
Paris, Comte de, 22 
Pedoya, General, 186, 187 
Pembroke, Lord, 241, 242 
Penaranda, Due de, 19 



Pietri, Jean Baptiste Francesehini, 
35, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 
47, 48, 92, 124, 150, 175, 221, 
296, 316, 319, 355, 364, 369, 374, 

379 
Pinard, M. Ernest, 271 
Pius IX., Pope, 54 
Plummer, John, 336, 337, 338 
Poincare, Raymond, 28 
Poix, Prince and Due, 268 
PoUet, Madame., 266 
Poniatowski, Prinee Stanislas, 261, 

262 
Ponsonby, Sir Henry, 194 
Porto-Carrero, Jean de, 149 
Portsmouth, Lord, 321 
Pourtales, Comtesse Edmond de, 

263, 270 
Primoli, Comte, 63 
Prince Imperial, the, 18, 24, 35, 

44, 49, 50. 51. 56, 57, 61 (his 

death), 102, 125, 135, 138, 198, 

200, 201, 202, 212-225, 230, 255, 

256,259, 299, 355 
Prince of Wales, 18, 319 



Q 



Qu^RENET, M. Rene, 275, 276, 281, 
283 



R 



Raimbeaux, M., 261, 262 

Madame Firmin, 270 

Redesdale, Lord, 322 

Reinach, Salomon, 266 

Renan, Ernest, 265, 266 

Renier, Leon, 265 

Reuss, Prince Henri de, 297 

Ricci, Seymour de, 266 

Rivoli, Due de, 270 

Robertson, Dr, 223 

Rochefort, Henri, 142, 146, 148, 

235- 271, 337 
Romilly, Lord, 302 
Rothschild, Baroness Alphonse de, 

270 
Rouher, M., 198, 217, 220, 221, 264 
Rousset, Lieut.-Col., 333 
Rouvier, M., 293 
Rudelle, M., 275, 283, 284 



Santora, Duque de, 107 
Savignac, Frere, 375 



3^4 



INDEX 



Scott, Dr, 223 
Schaeffer, Mile, 243 
Senior, Mr Nassau, 265 
Sheppard, Rev. Canon Edgar, 213 
Shorter, Clement, 338 
Sims, George R., 339, 358 
Smith, J. W. Gilbart, 245 
Soleille, 309 

Sophie, Queen of Holland, 254 
Spain, Queen of, 32, 104, 105, 273 
Stephens, Henry Pottinger, 147 
Stofifel, Colonel, 92, 263 
Strode, N.W.,334 

Sutherland-Gower, Lord Ronald, 
107 



Tammanus, Marquise de, 319 
Teck, Prince Francis, 160 
Thierry, Martin, 287 

Pierre, 287, 288, 293, 294 

Thiers, Adolphe, 27, 77, 78, 79, 84 

Thiery, Jean, 291 

Toledo, General Ferdinand Alvarez 

de, 106 
Trelawny, Mrs, 188 
Trochu, General, 78, 79, 80, 97, 98 
Truffier, Jules, 257, 258 
Turenne, Louis de, 220 
Tiirr, General, 267 



U 

Uhlmann, M., 45, 220, 221 
Unwin, T. Fisher, 154 



V 



Vaillant, Marshal, 290 

Vambery, Arminius, 44 

Vandam, 234 

Vasili, Count Paul, 342 

Vaughan, Mrs, 341 

Victoria, Princess, 18 

Victoria, Queen, 27, 29, 107, 137, 

143, 158, 198, 201, 213, 233, 236, 

244, 257, 355, 365, 378 
Villates, Baronne Ed. de George 

des, 371 



W 

Walewski, Comte, 266 
Wallace, Sir Richard, 234 
Welschinger, Henri, 87, 88, 89, 235, 

237 
Wilhelmshohe, Chateau of, 173, 174, 
William I., King, Emperor of 

Germany, 38, 61, 80, 81, 98, 169, 

196, 236, 238 
William II. (the Kaiser), 228 
Winter halter, 113 
Wolff, Sir Henry Drummond, 303, 

304. 344 
Wood, Sir Evelyn, 259 
Wyse-Bonaparte, Princess Adelaide, 

267 



Young, Filson, 348 



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